


Madgirls and Englishmen

by Samarkand12



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 06:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14159226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samarkand12/pseuds/Samarkand12
Summary: Agatha gets a little help one morning in an alley in Beetleburg...





	1. Chapter 1

"I'm not going to take that kind of crap from a civilian!"

The thief's backhand snapped Agatha's head to the side. There wasn't any pain. There was just numbness spreading through her brain as she hung in his grip. She couldn't move. Oh. She was going to be late. Doctor Beetle would be so cross. Doctor Merlot would likely make her clean out the mimmoth traps in the labs. Perhaps she could claim the concussion excused her from duty. Or maybe she might really be hurt. Because now she had defied the thief, and he was angry, and deserters like him did things to foolish girls who stumbled into dark alleys--

"Up for a bit of rough, are you?"

English in a rough British accent came from the shadows. Dazed green eyes shifted to peer further down the alley. A tall figure limped into view. Agatha gasped despite the fog in her head. An austerely handsome face with cheekbones that could have doubled as scalpels was covered with bruises and gashes. White-blonde hair cut short stuck up in wild tufts from his scalp. The remnants of a shirt that may or not have been red was now crimson from blood from the numerous wounds on his body. A long leather coat of a slightly different cut than her own greatcoat showed evidence of claws and worse things. One leg dragged behind him, twisted to an unnatural degree.

The Englishman was smiling.

"What the hell is he saying, Moloch?"

"Dammit, Omar, stop! Do you know what they do to thieves in this town?"

"Why, the little lady here is just making a contribution." SNAP. The thug holding her smirked as he jerked off her locket. "Piss off, Brit. A mimmoth could knock you over."

"No, my locket, you can't--" Agatha cried out when a boot struck her stomach.

"Stay down, bitch."

There was a snarl.

"Uh--" The thug's voice suddenly became uncertain.

"OH SHIT!" The other deserter took to his heels. "RUN, BROTHER!"

The stranger's face seemed to change.

There was a rush as what clearly was not a normal human blurred. Agatha rolled to the side of the alley when the Englishman flew over her at the thug. Covering her head with crossed arms, she curled up as sounds echoed off the alley walls that were all-too-similar to the last time some unwary graduate student had hit the experimental subject cage release. They had had to hose poor Franz's remains off the ceiling. The snapping had to be bones giving way, she thought clinically. That squelch? Hmmm. Eyeball. Or possible the testicles. A distinct copper scent came to her nose.

Boots trod heavily on the slimy cobbles of the alley.

"Here, luv," the Englishman said. There was a red stain around his lips. "Got your pretty back, a little banged up. Bugger wouldn't let go."

"Oh." Tears sprang to her eyes as she saw the two halves of her locket. "Oh no, it's broken, and I'm late, and----AHHHHH!"

"Oi, calm down now, luv." The stranger caught her before she collapsed onto the cobbles. "As bad as Dru when she had those spells."

"I'm broken like my locket." Agatha sniffled. She fumbled, clumsily forcing the two halves together before pinning it back at her throat.

"Now look, that's a bruised rib if I ever saw one," the stranger said casually. He fumbled in a coat pocket before drawing out a...cigarette? "Believe me, I know a thing or two about broken bones."

Agatha's gaze flicked to the remains in the shadows of the alley.

"Where do you have to be that you'd drag yourself in like that?" The stranger lit the cigarette with a lighter. He slowly slid down the wall, sprawling out, legs splayed wide. "Buffy was like that, bloody slayer, never knew when to quit."

The man who was obviously was a construct was hurt.

Agatha slung one arm over her shoulders, hauling up upright.

"Come with me, we'll get you to the TPU infirmary."

"No hospitals," the stranger said, head lolling.

"Don't be stupid," Agatha said, reaching for his wrist to check his pulse.

There wasn't one.

And he was rather cold, even for a late spring day like today.

Um.

"So...undead?"

"Don't worry, have me soul." The stranger grimaced. "Hurt near as this when I got it. Don't worry, the nibble I had should suit me right. Just prop me up."

"You're coming home with me." Agatha headed for the mouth of the alley. "My parents know about constructs in trouble. Er. You're a Tepes-style hemovore, aren't you? Does your dietary needs require human vitae straight from the source?"

"Pig's blood'll do, luv." The stranger lifted his cigarette to his lips. "So, Romanian, eh?"

"Yes, you're in my Master's town, Beetleburg," Agatha said. "My name is Agatha. Agatha Clay."

"Spike."

They came to the street, still in chaos from the strange visitation that had driven her to flee into the arms of the two thieves.

Spike blinked.

"I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore."


	2. Chapter 2

Agatha had had nightmares about being late for class. Sometimes moths would eat every stitch of clothing in her wardrobe. Other times she would be trapped in a bubble of slow time. There had been a few where she had been transported to the Wastelands outside of Beetleburg territory. All ended the same way: Mr .Tock barring the way as Silas Merlot laughed at her from the university battlements.  
  
Stumbling through the town's back alleys with a _nosferatu_ was a new one.  
  
_Clong-clong-clong-clong-clong-clong-clong-bong_  
  
The chimes of Mr. Tock counting half past seven was a terror she had never experienced in the worst of her dreams. She wasn't merely late. Not showing up after a half-hour without a note with a good reason why meant she was _absent_. No amount of patronage on the part of Doctor Beetle could excuse that. The Master of Transylvania Polygnostic had a policy of absenteeism almost as strict as that of thieving. It was whispered that chronic offenders ended up in the bell jars .Red fire, she was skating by on Doctor Beetle's indulgence and sheer effort. A single mark of absence mean she was unreliable, and people would whisper the broken girl was losing it, and Merlot would insist to the Master that she had no place at TPU, and she would be called in to ask if she really belonged here, and she didn't because she was the failure who got lost in her own town and it hurt it hurt it hurt--  
  
Fingers slender as a writer's with a bareknuckle fighter's calluses rubbed circles on her temples. Agatha blinked tears of pain from her eyes. Spike massaged away her migraine with the ease of long practice. One hand shook a cigarette free on its packet. Agatha hesitated. Lilith had _things_ to say about young ladies who indulged in tobacco almost as severe as girls who slipped into taverns. Well, she had skipped class. She might as well lose herself in dissipation. Spike lit the end with his lighter as she sucked in deep.  
  
"Easy, Beaker." Spike pounded her on the back. "Don't try to smoke it all in one go."  
  
"Uck. Lilith was right." Agatha sputtered. "This is a terrible habit."  
  
"But you look the business doing it," Spike said. "'S why I do it. Can't take in the nicotine, being what I am."  
  
"Nicotine. Yes." Agatha sighed at the langour spreading through her head. "Now I'm intoxicated along being a confused idiot."  
  
"Doing fine, Beaker." Spike swigged from a bottle he had snagged along the way. "Smart girl, to keep me out of the sunlight."  
  
"Most vampiric constructs are sensitive to ultraviolet." Agatha drew in another puff without choking.  
  
"Put me in the sun, Beaker, I'll go up like a torch." Spike chuckled, "Not the worst way to go. Tickles.  Supposed to be my last day anyway."  
  
"You spontaneously combust in direct sunlight?" Agatha shouted. "Oh no, my street won't be in shadow at this hour."  
  
"Steady on,"Spike said. "Cover me up, I can stand a dash."  
  
"More of a crawl at this pace." Agatha crushed the cigarette stub under her boot. "Why do you call me 'Beaker'?"  
  
"Smell the chemicals and ozone off you," Spike said. "Same as when I was in Fred's lab. So Beaker, like the muppet.  With those glasses, I could call you Scooter."  
  
Spike sighed at her incomprehension.  
  
"Right. Show won't be around for another century. Along with telly, although with sodding robots on the street this isn't the nineteenth century I knew. Bloody hell, Blue, when you decide to go out--"  
  
More than nicotine made her brain fizz. "For another century"? Agatha stared at the vampire sagging against her. Beneath the blood, his clothes were more finely woven than she had ever seen. She snatched the crumpled packet from his coat pocket. The foil paper was like nothing she had seen outside of laboratory supplies. There was tiny print on the carton of these "Marlboros". A year-- Sweet lightning, This was important! She should bring him to the Master immediately! He would certainly expunge her absence for a find like this.  
  
Spike's head dropped.  
  
He trusted her.  
  
The trip through back alleys and side streets took another eternity. Agatha fancied she heard explosions in the distance. It must be one of the chemistry classes getting energetic. Finally, she reached a corner of the block just across from Clay Mechanical. Agatha eyed the distance across the sunlit cobbles to the front door. Spike groaned when she laid him down on sacking she had appropriated from behind a grocer along the way. She rolled him up until he was mummified in burlap. She gritted her teeth when she hefted him across her shoulders. A shaking hand fumbled the front door key out of her pocket. _Spike had called her smart._  
  
Agatha ran out into the open. Heat blazed through her coat as, even under layers of sacking, Spike smoldered under the onslaught of the sun's rays. Her bruised rib blazed in pain when she slammed into the front door. Keys, keys, _she had to get the keys into the lock, where was it?_  
  
Agatha tumbled into her home. One boot kicked the door shut. The ground floor of the Clay home had no front hall. It was a single room that was both parlor and dining room. One door lead to the kitchen in back. Lilith emerged through it with a canning jar in hand. Her glasses perched atop her head, her mismatched eyes could be seen wide in shock at Spike half-unwound from his shroud on her parlor carpet. The side-door to Adam's workshop slammed open. Her mute foster father stormed in with a massive wrench held at the ready.  
  
Lilith took in the spectacle of her foster daughter and a smoldering, bloodstained man. She nodded once at Adam. He was already at the windows, closing the blast shutters and drawing the drapes. Lilith carried Spike into the kitchen. The great table in the center was swept clean of canning equipment. A deft flick spread a white sheet over it in preparation for emergency surgery.  
  
"Agatha,"Lilith said. "Lower cabinet. Get the sutures, needles, and other supplies."  
  
"He saved me," Agatha said, already putting a pot on to begin sterilization. "There was this soldier, and he tried to steal my locket, and I think he was going to do huh-huh-horrible things to me--"  
  
"He tried to steal your locket?" Lilith spun about. "Child, was it off your neck--"  
  
"IT'S NOT IMPORTANT! HE'S HURT!"  
  
Adam's arms curled around her from behind.  
  
"I've had a really bad day." Agatha sniffled. "But Spike needs our help more."  
  
"Hush, Agatha, we'll deal with it." Lilith embraced her as well. "Go upstairs and rest. We'll send word to Tarsus that you had reason for missing class."  
  
"Okay." Agatha wiped her eyes. "Are you sure you don't need me to assist?"  
  
"I would rather you calm down," Lilith said, "Adam, take her please."  
  
Agatha settled into his arms as he carried her up the stairs. The last thing she heard was Lilith muttering "she is her father's daughter, isn't she?" before the darkness fell. 


	3. Chapter 3

_Agatha dreamed of a universe of gears and forces and ineffable platonic truths that were always_ just _out of reach.  Hands flew as she hurried to grasp everything that she could of this wondrous **amazing universe before she became stupid and useless.  She ripped what she could from the grand design into the distillation of her creativity and learning and intelligence.  Even if the pain came to crush her down, this would venture out do DO HER WILL AND MAKE ALL THE LOVELY THINGS SHE DREAMED OF THAT NEVER WORKED BUT THEY WOULD.  IT WOULD SHOW THEM ALL.**_

Eyelids seemingly weighed down by anvils cracked open.  Green eyes stared dully at the mess of gears and springs in front of it.  Neck muscles screamed as Agatha slowly raised her head up.  Fingers massaged her temples against the dull ache in her head.  It was not the flaming spikes of the worst attacks.  This was the throbbing migraine she got after hours of trying to cram in information into her inadequate brain.  The last thing she remembered was collapsing in Adam's arms.  He must have undressed her and taken her upstairs to her room.  A glance at one of the many clocks on the wall and out the window told her that she had slept through the day and half the night.

Agatha cracked her neck.  Somehow, she had ended up at the drafting table that her foster father had made for her a few Christamses ago.  What looked like another of her fruitless projects was spread out on its surface.  She scratched her head as she struggled to figure out what she had been working on in her sleep.  She had certainly never done that before!  Why, it appeared to be the mechanism she had thrown together in a frenzy last morning.  It had been some sort of little clank.  Agatha peered closer.  Odd.  It appeared to be rather more complex than she recalled. 

More things to go sproing then, when the inevitable happened.

Her stomach growled loud enough to be heard in Vienna.  Agatha smacked her lips.  Red lightning, she was famished.  She had not had much rushing out of the house.  Absently, she shut the little clank's pocket watch case closed while reaching for a house robe hanging from a wall-hook.  She dropped it into one pocket while shuffling into knitted, steel-toed house slippers.  Covering a yawn behind one hand, she trudged down the dark stairs of the Clay home.  Agatha paused on the landing where the short flight leading to her garret room stopped at the door her her foster parents' rooms.  It had been left slightly open.  Through the gap, Lilith's voice could be heard talking in low tones.

"Eleven years!  We are not equipped for this," Lilith said.

Agatha bit her lip.  It was very impolite to eavesdrop.

"Tarsus guaranteed her protection," Lilith continued.  "There is still no word from what happened this morning at the university.  He could be in the Baron's hands.  If he is lucky, then he is dead."

Agatha stiffened.  The Master was in trouble!

"The only consolation is that she was not present when Klaus arrived," Lilith said.  "That means we have a little more time before we leave.  It will look more natural if they receive a letter of withdrawal rather than a sudden disappearance."

Withdraw from the university?  Leave?

"Yes, dear.  It would be more fun to sneak out of the quarantine."  Lilith laughed wryly.  "Like old times.  But this way it will be less traumatic for her--"

Agatha backed away quietly while Lilith continued her one-sided conversation with Adam.  Slipper-clad feet trudged down the last flight of stairs to the ground floor.  Agatha slipped into the kitchen without bothering to light a candle.  Mechanically, she assembled a sandwich of cold meats and cheese from the icebox.  She noted that the cake of ice in the top compartment was half-melted.  They would have to tell the iceman to fetch a new chunk. Of course, it would not matter since they were apparently going to move anyway.  She bit into her midnight meal with especial ferocity.  Most of her life until she was seven had been spent being pulled from one village or another across Mitteleuropa by her Uncle Barry.  She had always been the weird new kid.  There had never been a chance to make friends or settle down.  Life since she had been given to the Clays had not always been fun.  But at least Beetleburg had been home.   The Clays and Doctor Beetle had done everything they could to make it so.

_If he was lucky--_

Agatha swallowed the last of the sandwich with the greatest of difficulty.  Why would it be "lucky" for Doctor Beetle to die?  It was not as if her mentor could ever have been disloyal to Baron Wulfenbach.  He had always been a strong supporter of the Empire.  There had to have been an accident.  There had been that device the Baron had assigned Doctors Merlot and Glassvich to assemble.  Could something have gone wrong with the Dihoxulator?  Her breathing quickened.  Had something gone wrong with the Dihoxulator because she had not attended to a task by her absence that day?  No, no, that couldn't be it!  Doctor Beetle had been as much a parent as Lilith and Adam.  She might as well have stabbed him if the Dihoxulator had become instable due to her incompetence.

Burying her face in her hands, Agatha sobbed at the thought of her Master gone.

Why bother staying in Beetleburg if that was true?

" _London calling to the faraway towns  
Now war is declared and battle come down_ "

Singing came from below.

" _London calling, see we ain't got no swing  
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing_ "

Agatha's foot tapped to the strange yet catchy tune.

" _Meltdown expected, the wheat is growin' thin_  
_Engines stop running, but I have no fear_  
 _'Cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river_ " 

The rough voice came through the stout door to the stairs leading to the cellar.  Spike!  Of course, that would be exactly where Lilith would place a construct so sensitive to sunlight.  Constructs needing a place to stay were often bedded down in the cellar until they could find their feet--or other appendages--under them.  Agatha wiped away her tears.  At least she could check on him.  Perhaps she might even change his bandages without setting him on fire.  Probably.  She rummaged through the cabinets for a first-aid kit.  Then she reached for the latch to the cellar door.

She paused.

She was going downstairs into a confined space with a hemovore who had all the qualities of the _noseferatu_ folklore

Agatha spent a few more moments putting garlic in her pockets, taking down a small cross hanging in the parlor, and whittling a stake from a bit of kindling in the woodpile.

Only then with lit lantern in hand did she go downstairs.

" _London calling, yes, I was there, too_  
_An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!_  
 _London calling at the top of the dial_  
 _And after all this, won't you give me a smile?_  
 _I never felt so much a' like a'like a'like_ "


	4. Chapter 4

Even with her arsenal, Agatha felt rather foolish as she descended into the cellar. She had lived around labs much of her life. Creeping down here was close to being the gullible minion allowing herself to be talked into freeing the villain who was strapped down on a dissecting table for very good reasons. Agatha told herself that she was not acting like every overly-curious victim _du jour_ in Heterodyne plays who was put in for someone for the audience to yell at. If Spike had meant her harm, he would have drank her dry in the alley like the soldier.

Agatha smiled at the memory of the man's dying screams. Why, Spike was practically a friend now.

The cellar was a cramped chamber beneath the kitchen with stone walls and floor of a vintage older than the house above. Wooden shelves on three of the walls were stuffed with all manner of food. It was mainly in glass jars and bottles; Lilith was a fanatic for canning and preserving. Joints of salted meat in netting hung from hooks screwed into the beams in the ceiling. By the farthest wall where several barrels stood was a camp cot. Lying on the covers like a dissipated lord was Spike. Heat rose in Agatha's cheeks when she realized that the only thing clothing his body was several kilometer's worth of bandaging. He squinted a bit into the lantern light, a jar of wine half-lifted to his lips.

No, what was in the jar was not wine.

"Hullo, then." Spike grinned. "The grateful maiden come down to nurse the fallen hero."

"I wanted to see how you were recovering," Agatha replied, eyeing a ham with unusual interest.

"I could do with a sponge bath," Spike mused. "Some stretching, bit of a massage--"

"Make anymore suggestions like that," Agatha said, revealing the cross, "and this will go into one of your orifices. Sideways."

"Need some work on your bedside manner, Beaker." Spike twitched the blanket over his lap. "There. Modesty preserved."

"Thank you." Agatha kept the cross in hand as she approached. "Um, I have to ask. You aren't thirsty, are you?"

"Nah, your mum took care of that." Spike drained the last of the jar. "This is fresh cow's blood, it is. Too cold for my taste, though. And it could do with some Wheatabix."

"Wheatabix?"

"Sort of a cracker thing," Spike explained. "Crumble it up. Gives the blood texture. 'Course, I could really do with a fag and a drink. Your mum wouldn't approve, I bet."

"Lilith would toss you out at high noon if you so much as lit a scrap of tobacco in the house," Agatha said, examining what she could. "'Fag' means cigarette, yes? Same with alcohol in the house."

"I bet that big bloke who's your dad has something he keeps in the garage," Spike said. "A bottle to pass around with his mates when work's slow."

"Technically, that's his special degreaser." Agatha whistled. "Wow. You're still a mess. But the recovery rate is amazing. Whichever Spark created you did amazing work."

Spike cocked his head.

"That is the English term, isn't it?" Agatha asked. "Don't you have them where you come from? Or should I say... **somewhen**."

"Must have been off my head," Spike muttered. "Never heard of Sparks. And I'm no construct, Beaker. I was sired, not made."

"Well, Sparks are scientists," Agatha said. "The greatest of them who can see beyond the petty laws of man and God into the very fundamentals of the universe, prising out wonders and nightmares like Prometheus himself ripping free of his chains."

"Some would call them mad, eh?"

"Pretty much," Agatha admitted. "Even my Master was--is very intense at times. So, tell me about vampires."

"Bit of a fairy tale, Beaker," Spike said. "The old sort, where the little girl in the red hood don't come out of the wolf's belly at the end."

"It can't be scarier than Blank Peter," Agatha said. She crossed her arms before her. "I'm not spun from glass."

"Right. Vampires where I come from are demons." His face _shifted_ with a sickening crunch. A bestial visage with yellow eyes stared back at her. "This is our true face behind the mask. A vamp's sire near-drains a mortal, then feeds them some of their blood. Soul goes to wherever they go. The demon in the blood takes its place."

"Demons." Agatha was aware she should be screaming. Studying the his transformation was much too interesting. "So God and Hell and everything the church teaches are true."

"Don't know much of God." Spike's face shifted back. "Demons, the pure and old ones, they're from dimensions you'd call hell. Those on earth after the world changed back then are half-breeds like us vampires."

"You said you had a soul," Agatha said.

"Fought for mine, yeah." Spike leaned back. "Still have the demon in me. You wouldn't have wanted to meet me before the soul. I was a proper monster for over a century. Would have done to you all that that soldier boy would have, then used your skin as gloves for my Dru if she had taken the fancy."

"Well, maybe you are a demon." Agatha swallowed. She was proud her hand did not shake when she patted his shoulder. "You're a monster who came gallantly to my aid when I needed it most. And you resisted flaying me alive, so that's another mark in your favor. That makes you my monster."

"You're a trooper, you are." Spike chuckled. "Now run along upstairs to have the shakes. I can smell the fear off you."

The trembling did not start until she had walked--not fled--halfway up the stairs. It was not that she had spent minutes close to an admitted killer who must have consumed a human every night for a hundred years. Agatha had lived around what others would call monsters. Some of them worked as staff at the university. Many had what could be called unfortunate dietary needs. No, she was not shaking in terror. Well, actually, yes. Because apparently Hell was real in a multiple sense with primal forces waiting just beyond the veils of what man laughing;y called reality to consume all she held dear.

Which was absolutely _fascinating_. Agatha had heard of the concept of alternate temporal streams from implications in the work of Doctor Zardilev of the Paris Institute of the Extraordinary. Doctor Beetle had had her study one of Zardilev's papers to help with a particularly tricky crossword puzzle. The hint that other universes existed side by side with the one of stars and planets and baryonic matter was nothing she had ever heard of. Or could they be timelines whose divergences were so distant in the past that that they constituted other universes by default? 

Why, demons might even be walking among the peoples of Europa at this moment. The sheer variety of constructs and other creatures meant that demons might pass as just another lab experiment. Spike would be a veritable fount of data. He could spot what demons he knew. Or if she could persuade him, a sample of his blood could be analyzed for whatever eldritch signatures that might indicate an otherworldy origin. _She would need a lab with access to transdimensional harmonic apparatii. She could slip through the set-up in the paperwork she did as the Tyrant's personal secretary. The Doctor might be furious. If she could present him with preliminary findings, then surely he would excuse it in the name of SCIENCE!--_

Pain blossomed in her temples.

If the Doctor was even alive.

A vise settled around her mind like a circlet of fire.

If her Master's second in command Doctor Merlot did not simply dismissed her from her position as secretary. Or even tell her to leave the university altogether.

Agatha staggered into the kitchen with the old agony burning in her brain. Gentle hands guided her into a chair. Another pair of massive hands kneaded her shoulders while the migraine burned itself out. From the stove came the burble of a teakettle that slowly rose into a hiss of steam. Metal clinked against porcelain as Lilith prepared one of her soothing teas. Her glasses were off, revealing the mismatched eyes her creator had endowed her with. Agatha gratefully sipped the herbal blend mixed with honey and a touch of laudanum. Lilith patted her hand as Adam worked a knot out of her shoulders.

"You shouldn't exert yourself," Lilith said. "Not with that bruised rib of yours."

"Huh. It feels better, actually." Agatha touched her side. "Still tender. It's bearable now." 

"Is it?" Lilith pursed her lips. "You should stay home from school regardless."

"So you can send in my letter of resignation?" Agatha asked bitterly. 

"The door." Lilith looked up at her husband. "We are getting slow without practice."

"Might be for the best." Agatha sagged. "I try so hard. It never seems to help."

Adam shook his head, squeezing one shoulder reassuringly.

"You don't have to coddle me," Agatha replied. 

"I saw a very strong young lady yesterday," Lilith said. "Never think you are useless. You saved that man's life even when you were scared and hurt."

Adam added a thumb's up.

"Thanks." Agatha stared down into the swirling tea leaves. "Do we really have to go? You have everything here--the house, the business, your canning."

"With the Baron about, there is no choice," Lilith said firmly.

"It can't be anything you have done," Agatha protested.

"It is very complicated--"

"Then tell me!" Agatha smacked a palm hard on the table. "What is the big mystery?"

Adam gave a harrumph.

"You are right, dear." Lilith nodded. "In a little while, when we are safe. Then we can tell you what you need to know."

"Well, that won't be for a while yet." Agatha shook her head. "We are not leaving until Spike is better."

Adam grunted as he stared at the half-open cellar door.

"He is crippled and alone," Agatha said. "I don't even think he speaks the language. He knows I am Romanian. He still only talks to me in English."

"He isn't your responsibility, Agatha," Lilith said.

"Spike saved me," Agatha said. "He is my responsibility now."

Adam covered his mouth with one hand.

"I agree, dear," Lilith said. "Blood will win out in the end."

Sipping her tea, Agatha wondered what that meant.


	5. Chapter 5

Doctor Beetle lay in state in the university chapel.

The rarely-used university bells had rung out mid-morning in a sonorous dirge. It was said that Mr. Tock--the university's twenty meter tall guard clank and bell tower--had been destroyed in the fighting in the previous day. All sorts of rumours had swept through the town about the affair. Some said the Baron's own son had gone mad trying to solve a puzzle; the Tyrant had died in the chaos surrounding the outburst. Others whispered that the Tyrant had been called to account for forbidden experiments. No-one had dared question the Baron's takeover of the town. His clanks and soldiers were everywhere within Beetleburg's walls.

For that alone, her foster parents had wanted to forbid her from seeing her late Master. Agatha did not know what had possessed her in that moment. Only that she had gotten _angry_ and **_furious_** and **_how dare they deny her this_**. She had never, ever shouted at them like that! It had at least distracted her while she stomped out of the house in her mourning blacks. Irrecoverable deaths among the faculty and student body were common enough to have a set always ready to attend a funeral. The rage had carried her like a foaming tide through the streets and onto the Transylvania Polygnostic campus.

It had receded, leaving her empty, by the time she joined the queue at the entrance to the chapel. The Beetles had adopted Egyptian symbolism along with the scarab that the founder of the house had adopted as a sigil a hundred and fifty years ago. The chapel was a great structure of grey stone that could have been stood in Memphis among the great temples. Stained glass windows with ankhs and scarabs bearing the sun in their mandibles allowed in soft light in the space. Doctor Beetle's glass-topped coffin had been laid on the altar.

Agatha stared dully through the glass at the remains. Her late mentor lay in his most formal green suit with the cape of office buckled around his throat. Care had been taken to fill out the cloth in the most natural way possible. A wax death mask rendered so skillfully that only those who knew him well could tell it was not his true face. It was as if the short, bald man whose snowy beard and tonsure was contrasted by his dark skin was asleep. It was all a lie. All the rumours about his demise agreed that the explosion had burned him down to his bones. There had been nothing of the brain left to work with. The greatest of the Sparks of his generation was gone.

She was aware that she was making a spectacle of herself. She did not care. A flood of grief as powerful as the rage that had brought her here overwhelmed her. Every emotion and sensation was heightened of late. Collapsing across the coffin, she bawled out her sorrows without a care to how it looked. Everyone mocked her, anyway. A firm hand took her arm. Agatha was too distraught to resist as she was guided into the pews a few rows back near a support column. She murmured something appreciative as she was handed a handkerchief. She blew it like a dirigble doing an emergency dump of ballast.

"Keep it." The tall young man standing over her waved away the sodden hankie when she offered it back. "I have plenty more where those come from."

"I'll drop this into biocontainment later." Agatha sniffled out the last into the kerchief. "Your are very kind, sir."

"Well, that's a new one." The man was dressed quite formally in the greatcoat and almost-military clothes of the Wulfenbach Empire's elite. The contrast to the shock of mussed brown hair crowning his head was astonishing. "Take all the time you need to recover, Miss Clay."

Agatha stiffened. At the man's throat was the winged rook sigil of House Wulfenbach.

All around them in the pews were the inhuman Jaegers: the monsters that had switched their allegiance from House Heterodyne to the Baron.

"Am I in trouble, Herr--" So stupid. She had been warned about the dangers of drawing the attentions of the Wulfenbachs.

"Gilgamesh. But you can call me Gil." The last was said in an oddly hopeful tone. "No, we checked what remains of Doctor Beetle's notes. You were not implicated in the affair."

"What did he do?" Agatha glared at what had to be the Baron's son. "What could possibly merit killing a man of his caliber?"

"He threw a bomb at me," Gilgamesh said.

"The Master could have had any number of good reasons for that," Agatha retorted. "That's no excuse."

"That's what my father said." Gilgamesh ran a hand through his hair. It did not improve matters much. "Miss Clay, the reason he threw a bomb was because he was resisting arrest for studying a hive engine in the middle of a civilian town while concealing such research from the empire."

"WHAT?" Agatha's jaw dropped. "He would never-- Wait. There were those rush orders for honey, that team who suffered accidents recently--"

"Precisely. We have no idea why he thought he could get away with it." Gil smiled. "You know, you're much sharper than the stories about you suggest."

"It is a sudden burst of competence. It will pass."

"Competent or not, we will expect you to report to work tomorrow," Gilgamesh said. "Continuity of government and all that. Sorry about rushing you back in, a day is all I can spare you."

"Er." Agatha paused. "I was actually expecting to be kicked out. Doctor Merlot was never my biggest fan."

"That idiot is currently a head in a jar," Gilgamesh said. "His outburst pushed Beetle into confronting us before Father could handle it. So it seems that by breaking him, I am going to be governor of the town and the university until stability is established."

"I was ready to move on," Agatha said.

"Miss Clay, you are mistaking this for a request." Gilgamesh's tone cooled. "I need someone experienced with how Beetle ran matters."

"I see." Agatha's fists tightened. "So I've been drafted."

"Until the transition period is over," Gilgamesh said. "Really, I could use the help. My father does love his little tests. This will be the first major bit of work for the Empire."

Warm brown eyes seemed to plead with her.

Maybe she was being too hard on--

Her back stiffened when she saw Doctor Beetle's coffin a few meters away.

"I will of course fulfill all my duties as a citizen of the Empire," Agatha said coldly. "Excuse me. I would like to pay my last respects to the man you killed."

She slapped the balled-up handkerchief into his chest. Jaw clenched, she strode off as the Jaegers about them laughed at Gilgamesh's skill "mit de gorls". Agatha drew a deep, calming breath before mounting the dais to the altar. The glass over the coffin was cool against her brow when she leaned against it. Why? Why would he take such a foolish risk? Fumbling in a pocket, she slipped out the little device she had cobbled together in her sleep. She eased the top of the coffin up enough to tuck it under the hands crossed over his chest. They were wax too. Agatha pressed a kiss to the glass before trudging away.

Most of the university was sealed off. The hospital that served to both teach medicine and serve the town was still open. The skeleton staff on duty that day were too distracted by grief to notice her. There was no-one to see her select a few bottles of human blood from refrigerated stores. She chose from the older ones that were close to expiry, signing with her own signature on the disposal forms. She had done so before during volunteer shifts. It would not be questioned if she was careful about it. The bottles were tucked into a handbag with some scarves wadded into it for padding. 

There was evidence of a battle on the university campus. Chunks of masonry lay where they had been blasted off by cannon fire. There was a mechanical hand from one of the guard clanks of Doctor Beetle's Clockwork Army. The motorboard-hatted army had been the greatest fighting machines of their time. They clearly had not fared as well against the three-eyed, shakoed brass combat clanks of the Wulfenbach forces. They were posted on every street in town bearing huge machine cannons. Ordinary soldiers of the Empire patrolled the streets in the place of the Clockwork Army. She saw one woman in uniform tap curiously on one of the glass jars in a square. The desiccated corpse of a thief within had not been removed yet.

"Zo, hyu giff Meester Gil vun hard time. Gut for hyu! De best gorls make de man fight for it."

"Yipe!" Agatha whirled about with a five-pound lurning-wrench raised in one hand.

"Ho, undt you bear concealed veapons." Fangs flashed. "Ho, hyu vill be a fun von for de keed."

Agatha gulped. It was a Jaeger. She had not even heard it following her. It was a typical example of its type. That is, if anything could be called typical of constructs that varied so widely. It stood a good foot or so higher than her. Pale yellow hair was matched by a jaundiced complexion. A leather bandolier bearing the grenades to the stubby launcher-pistol holstered at its belt crossed over a spotless white uniform jacket. Green cuffs complemented green breeches with brass scale armor sewn to the front of the thighs. A jaunty campaign hat was perched rakishly atop its head.

"Stay back!" Agatha shouted. "I won't let you eat me."

"Vy do dey alvays tink ve is cannibals?" The Jaeger bowed. "Hy is Zudok. Meester Gil asked dot hy make sure hyu get home safe undt sound."

"I am honored by his concern," Agatha said. "I think I can walk the streets of my own town without a problem."

"Ja? Cawze somevun beat hyu up not long ago," Zudok said. "Hyu favor vun sid just a leetle beet."

"I, ah, fell when the incident happened last morning," Agatha said.

"Hokay." Zudok's gaze flicked to her handbag. He sniffed. "Blud. It heff a distinctiff schmell."

"I--I can explain--"

"Hy bet hyu can." Zudok winked. "Dey found a body in dis alley last night. Ho, zumvun really beat dot soldier boy op. Fonny tink, dere vas hardly any blud in heem at all."

Agatha forced herself to stay still when Zudok leaned close to whisper in her ear.

"Undt you schmell of a bit of gar--"

Zudok sniffed deeply.

"Vow. Hyu schmell...verra nize."

"Are you done?" Agatha croaked out.

"Ja. Hokay." Zudok shook his head. "Zo, anyvay, hy vill be hyu escort to and from vork. Just in case hyu be tinking ov running avay. Vich vould be a shame, cawze hyu undt Meester Gil is fonniest show dot ve see in a long time."

Silently, Agatha groaned.

"Come alonk, gorl," Zudok said. "Let's get hyu home."


	6. Chapter 6

Agatha sagged against the front door after slamming it shut in Zudok's grinning face. Trying not to scream while listening to an endless stream of dating advice had used up the last reserves of her composure. Rushing into the parlor, she eased open the blast shutter and twitched aside the curtain. Zudok was slouching in a mockery of attention against a lamp-post that would have any drill sergeant apoplectic with rage. Passerby deliberately crossed the street to avoid him. The creature was likely responsible for a localized property value collapse. He jovially waved right at her.

She double-bolted the blast shutters. Sweet lightning, what was she going to tell her parents? They were already ready to bolt as it was. This might actually send them into a panic. Sitting on the couch, Agatha tried to think of a way to gently break the news. Perhaps she could tell them she had met a boy at the service. He had been most considerate of her distress. In a moment of indiscretion, she had promised to meet him tomorrow. He had sent a friend about to escort her.

It was not exactly lying.

The clatter of tools came from the internal entry to the workshop. Agatha always enjoyed watching her foster father at work. She wished sometimes that she could work with him. The incident when she had tried helping to fix a threshing engine when she was twelve had ended any further attempts. Watching him fix things would ease the mild headache that had come upon her. Agatha paused to change into her usual steel-toed walking boots instead of the formal shoes she had worn to the chapel. Adam had made it very clear--if silently--that foot protection was a must when in his domain. 

The shutters in the leaded-glass skylights in the roof had been closed. It made the workshop dimmer than it usually. The only light came from the gas-jets. Hanging from the ceiling hoist was one end of Herr Ketter's steam tractor. The upper half of Adam's body was buried in the contraption's innards. Lilith handed him the tools he asked for through a private language of gestures and huffs. To her surprise, Spike was at a workbench cleaning several parts with a rag and degreaser. His platinum-blonde hair was slicked down. He was dressed in black trousers with braces and a patched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A foot shod in a hobnailed boot beat out time to a whispered song.

"You're a mechanic as well, Spike?" Agatha said.

"Hullo, Beaker." Spike knocked back a swig from the jar of special degreaser. "Yeah, that's the stuff. Mostly engines. Always loved me a car or bike with some go in it. First one was a Stanley Steamer I nicked."

"Nicked?"

"Herr Spike means 'stolen'," Lilith said in accented but fluent English. "I trust his misspent youth is behind him."

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," Spike replied. "Don't knock knowing a spot of larceny. It would do you good , too, to learn a bit more of fighting."

Adam harrumphed from the depths of the tractor's innards.

"We taught Agatha what a lady needs when faced with violence," Lilith said with a touch of defensiveness.

"That was your mistake. Teaching Beaker to be a lady in a fight?" Spike snorted. "When the balloon goes up, manners go out. Fights are blood and sweat and tears. Should have gone for his bollocks or his knee after opening with the bottle."

Now Adam was looking at Spike with more than a bit of appreciation.

"Well, I have you and now Zudok to protect me," Agatha said, trying to defuse the argument.

As one, her parents turned to face her.

"Zudok?"

"Ehehehhe." Agatha tugged at the high collar of her shirtwaist. "There's a funny story about what happened at the university."

Lilith and Adam did not find the tale amusing. There was a shocking amount of swearing in several languages from Lilith; Adam's contributions were no less emphatic despite their silent nature. It all left Agatha feeling very stupid. It had been her stubborn insistence of leaving the house that now complicated any chance of escaping cleanly. It had been her decision to shelter Spike until he recovered that had delayed them. Of course. Agatha had mucked everything up her entire life. This was one more in what amounted to a career in failure.

"Sharper than the stories about you."

Ha to that, Mr. Gilgamesh Sodding Wulfenbach.

Agatha retreated to where she always had fled to when faced with yet another failure. Her garret beneath the eaves of the Clay house was one half of the attic. The other half next to the workshop was storage. She curled up in the bed built up against one wall like an airship cabin's berth. Painted over the ceiling were stars in luminescent paint that shone down on her during the night. Much of the exposed wood was carved into gingerbread patterns. Some of the work had been done by Adam. Other parts had been her own work in emulation of her foster father. The sunlight through the tiny dormer window was blocked by plants in pots that she had gathered as samples from trips outside the walls.

It was a home that she had never wanted to eave.

Now she had her wish. All it had cost her was putting her foster parents in danger.

Agatha frowned. It was odd. They seemed to have known exactly who Zudok was. Of all the constructs, the Clays had refused to have anything to do the the few Jaegermonsters who had wandered through Beetleburg. That was hardly unusual. There were often incidents when Clockwork Army clanks had opened fire on Jaegers upon hearing the distinctive Old Mechanicsburg accent. The Jaegers were hated throughout Europa as the Baron's shock troops and from the time of the Old Heterodynes. People never talked about the family these days except for the Heterodyne Boys. She had heard enough references--particularly about Bludtharst, who had fought the Storm King--to guess that the Heterodynes had not always been heroic.

Could her parents have hailed from Mechanicsburg? Lilith and Adam never talked about their past. They always took special care to conceal their nature as constructs. Adam was always covered up to hide the stitching holding him together. Lilith's glasses had one lens ground to obscure the eye that was larger than the other. Her fingers drummed on the bedframe. Could it be that they wanted to hide their appearance from those who had known them before? Surely not because they had done ill before coming to Beetleburg around the end of the Other War. 

The sole hint she had about their past was that they loathed the depiction of Punch and Judy in the Heterodyne Boys stories printed in the penny sparklies and acted out in popular shows. No wonder, really. Agatha could not help enjoying them on the sly. But the Punch and Judy in the shows were rather insulting characters that played up common prejudices regarding constructs. In fact, Agatha had always thought there was a strong resemblance between her foster parents and the caricatures of the Heterodyne Boys' servants. And Adam and Lilith apparently knew one Jaeger by name.

Punch and Judy.

Behind her glasses, Agatha's eyes slammed wide open.

A throbbing took hold of her brain.

Uncle Barry had kept them moving around as if being hunted.

Shaking fingers unclipped the locket pinned to her throat.

A man with dark hair in one miniature portrait smiled across at the lovely blonde woman in the other half. They did not look like the drawings she had seen in penny sparklies read on the sly. Drills slowly burrowed into her temples. They couldn't be. She couldn't be. That was like something out of a--

\---out of a--

"Out of a Heterodyne story," Agatha whispered.

"Agatha." Lilith stood by the head of the bed. She looked exhausted. "Can you forgive me?"

"I can't be," Agatha said. "They were smart and brilliant and amazing. And I'm just broken and wrong."

"No, child." Lilith took the locket. She gazed down at the portraits. "Bill would have been proud of you."

"And--" Agatha forced out the name. "Lucrezia. Would she have been proud?"

"I daresay she might call you her greatest creation." A shadow passed over Lilith's features. "Pardon. Adam and I left partly due to, ah, conflicts with Lucrezia."

"Hard putting old fights to rest," Agatha said.

"Something like that." Lilith knelt on the rug by the bed. "You have to be very brave and clever, now. It may come to Adam and I leaving to avoid being recognized. If all else fails, get to the Castle in Mechanicsburg."

"Alright." Agatha pinned the locket back in place. "Why can't we go to the Baron? He was their friend."

"Klaus is not the man we knew," Lilith said. "He has become harder and much more ruthless. Old friendships mean less when politics rears its head."

"I never cared about that stuff," Agatha protested. "I just wanted to make things. One thing that worked."

Lilith placed a hand gently on her head.

"In time, Agatha." Lilith said. "Just a little more time."

++++

The alley behind Clay Mechanical was barely wide enough to allow Adam's broad shoulders to pass through. It was little used except for the rubbish collectors and honey wagons that gathered both types of refuse from behind the buildings on either side. The narrow slit above hid the sun from view unless it was right overhead. A few doors down from Clays were several discarded packing cases. Smoke spiraled up from a cigarette almost down to its filter clenched between two white fingers. Platinum-blonde hair was a stark contrast against the dark brickwork behind it. A free hand flashed out far faster than any human could manage. Wit a panicked trumpeting, a wriggling creature dangled from its trunk before fangs impaled it.

"Don't know what you call these little things," Spike said, tossing the corpse aside. "They're brilliant. Like little crisps, you can't have the one. Much posher than rats."

Adam tossed a bundle at him.

"Oi! My coat. You mended it." Spike snapped out the black leather duster. "You can't hardly see the stitching. You and the missus must have experience with that." 

Adam grunted.

"Won't mention it again, then." Spike donned it as if it were the cherished full-plate of a knight. "So, is there where you tell me to piss off else you put a bit of packing crate through my heart?"

Adam shook his head emphatically.

"You do know what I am? Maybe even guessed what I've done." Spike stroked the coat. "Not the original. I took that one off a fight with a brave girl. Second Slayer I ever killed."

Adam patted his chest over his heart.

"Wha'? At least bring out an easel for Pictionary." Spike lit up another cigarette. "'Heart'. Right. Soul. And you believe me. Time was, the mob I ran with would have strung all your guts around the house like Christmas garlands for that sort of trust."

Adam glanced upwards.

"Is my weak spot," Spike admitted. Smoke issued from his nostrils like a dragon. "It's always the women. That's how I fell into heroism. I was a happy monster, I was. Then there was this girl, and I fell into bad company, then next thing you know it's all over."

Adam silently laughed.

"'S'not funny." Spike grimaced. "Bugger it all. Girl has a destiny, doesn't she? The Powers That Sodding Be sent me here. I'm their rent-boy now. You'd think sacrificing yourself twice would be enough."

Adam jerked a thumb back at the open workshop door.

"I have half a mind to pull up that sewer grate," Spike said, "and fuck off somewhere dark while whatever bloody adventure happens without me, thank you very much."

Adam rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah." A trumpet. A crunch. A slurping sound. "At least tell me there will be decent fights."

Adam nodded emphatically.

"Oh. That's alright then." Spike tugged the lapels of his coat. "Lead on, then."


	7. Chapter 7

The problem with suffering an existential crisis while your town was under occupation was boredom. After the first half-hour, her mind had chased around itself like a sparkhund hallucinating its own quarry was a madboy. Said sparkhund had snuffed up the contents of a cocaine vial; a cascade of thoughts that she could not block out gushed out like the Danube at full flood. How had Spike been propelled across space and time? What had her uncle been running from all his life? She owned a _town_ , with _subjects and_ ** _territory_** _,_ ** _with the only training she had in statecraft being Doctor Beetle's glorified stenographer_**.

The center of the rug under her shoes was looking threadbare when she caught herself. No classes to lose herself in the material. Fiddling on her workbench would lead to yet another failure. None of the books on the shelves lining the walls of her bedroom appealed. Distracting herself in the domestic tasks that Judy--that Lilith--heaped upon her when she was unoccupied did not appeal. At all. There was no going out with the curfew and that damned Jaeger waiting for her. There were ants in her pantalettes and turbines in her brain and _it was driving her mad. Mad!_

With a shriek, Agatha flung herself down the stairs to the parlor. She kicked aside the bench before the piano that had pride of place in the room. Lilith taught the ladylike arts of music and dance to the bourgeois girls of Beetleburg. She had sat Agatha down many times at the upright piano to calm her. Music was the one thing that allowed her to think. Doctor Beetle had even assigned some of the masters from TPU's small music department to tutor her. Not that she was any good. "Technically proficient, but without the fire of true talent" was their politest assessment. Well, she did not want to be Mozart reborn. A discordant arpeggio issued forth as she slammed her itching fingertips onto the keys with too much force.

"Twenty twenty four hours to go, I wanna be sedated

Nothing to do nowhere to go-oh, I wanna be sedated"

Yes! Precisely. Her fingers shifted to match the melody sensed in the voice.

"Hurry hurry hurry, put me on a plane,

Hurry hurry hurry, before I go insane"

Agatha bopped her head to the wild beat she sensed beneath the lyrics

"Oh oh oh oh, I wanna be sedated..."

Fingers still dancing, Agatha swung about to see Spike sprawled out on a couch beneath the windows facing the street. He wore his long leather coat in spite of being inside. His boots were up on the armrest of the couch. That would usually have counted as a capital offense in the Clay house; the clean shop towel he had laid across it might mitigate his sentence to slow torture. Every so often, he would gulp down the contents of one of the blood bottles she had brought back from the university. His singing was more passion than ability. He sung of the Blitzkrieg Bop, where the kids in the back seat generated steam heat. Some sort of boiler set to a tune? There was Sheena who had come to the mysterious city of New York to become a rocker. There were the dreaded guns of Brixton. There was a rendition of God Save The Queen that no Englishman she knew would ever sing about Queen Albia. Through them all there was the sense of a wild, raucous music that she pounded out on the piano until there was only that.

As the last notes faded, two harrumphs could be heard from the kitchen and workshop.

"Too loud?" Agatha asked her foster parents, both with hands over their ears.

They both nodded emphatically.

"Punk's not for everyone," Spike observed when she closed the keyboard cover.

"I never heard anything like that," Agatha said. "Not even the really bohemian work from Paris."

"Punk's from my time, Beaker," Spike said. "Came out of rock and roll from America."

"You have regular contact with the Americas?" Agatha said. "There hasn't been much for decades."

"Wha', no United States?" Spike shrugged. "I was about done with the place anyway. Yeah, punk was rock and roll after all the prancing hippies realized it was all going to hell."

"I hope you're talking metaphorically," Agatha said.

"It was glorious ruin in the seventies and eighties in New York and London." Spike chuckled. "Everything was worn out. Everyone found out all their idols were fake. The only thing to do was dance and scream and spit bile in the face of it all."

"No-one believed in heroes?" 

"We had them on stage. The Ramones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols." Spike held up two intertwined fingers. "Sid and Nancy and Dru and me, we were mates. Like this."

"You mentioned her a few times," Agatha said. "She was your love."

"Drusilla. My sire." Spike shook his head. "Driven mad by my grand-sire. That was how he was, Angelus. Stalked her, killed family and friends, slaughtered the convent she found sanctuary in before turning her."

"That's horrible," Agatha said.

"That was Angelus. Loved his art." Spike stared at the ceiling. "Drusilla was his finest work. Cruel, bewitching, the Bloody Belle Dame Sans Merci. We shagged and killed and laughed across most every continent for over a hundred years."

Spike threw an arm over his eyes.

"And then we came to Sunnydale."

"What happened there?" Agatha whispered.

"I'd brought her there to cure her after a mob had attacked us in Prague," Spike said. "And there waiting for us was Buffy."

Agatha blinked.

"'Buffy'?"

"The woman who brought me low," Spike said. He swung his boots off the couch. "Right. Have any idea where there's a decent pub? "

"Pub? Oh, you mean a tavern," Agatha said. "There is a tavern I heard about in the Student Quarter where everyone goes."

"Good, because the whole sad story about me and Buffy," Spike said, "can't be told sober. I've drunk half your dad's moonshne. Bloke can't impose too much."

"I've never been in a tavern," Agatha said. "Lilith doesn't approve of ladies frequenting low places."

"Suit yourself." Spike glanced out the window. "Sun's well down. I'll find my way."

"I--" Agatha bit her lip. She turned to call towards the kitchen. "Could you keep dinner warm for me? Spike has asked for a tour of the town."

"Do be careful." Lilith poked her head around the corner. "Do not attract any attention."

"I'll keep her safe as houses," Spike said.

Agatha told herself that she had not lied. Precisely. The tavern was in the town. Ergo, it was a valid part of a tour. She donned her greatcoat and cap against the evening chill It had been a long, hard winter. Beetleburg was deep enough in the Carpathians that the cold still gripped the valley which sheltered the town. The amount of sunlight on the rooftops alarmed her Spike did not appear intimidated at all. He instinctively sought out the safe areas in shadow and shade on the street. There was still enough of a limp in his gait for her to thread an arm through his for support.

 

The day curfew appeared to have been eased. There were more people outside than this morning, though the crowds were subdued. The Wulfenbach clanks and soldiers posted on the major streets contributed to that. Spike was much more cheerful. Honestly, he gawked as if he were the rawest peasant from the backwoods of the mountains! Agatha was not sure the date that he had been sent back from in his timeline. She supposed it to be sometime from the mid- to late twentieth century. Surely he must have seen wonders of the advancement of SCIENCE! that should put those on display in Beetleburg appear quaint. Lacking Sparks meant that major advances might not come as quickly. Surely, a hundred years would be enough time for the mundane sciences to catch up to those of Europa.

The Student Quarter was a neighborhood of twisty, narrow streets just to the east of the walls of Transylvania Polygnostic. It was also unofficially known as the Asylum due to the nature of most of its inhabitants. No self-respecting native Beetleburger would live there. The Clockwork Army had often been sent in at the behest of the town watch to deal with the shenanigans of the undergraduate population. The Baron appeared to share the town's view of the gowns. There were shock troops posted at every corner. As the two of them went deeper into the quarter, Agatha noticed that people stared at her and whispered in their passage. She was used to the pitying glances of her fellow students. Her infamy as the university klutz had become campus legend. Still, it seemed excessive. Why on earth were those two girls giggling and fanning themselves? There were days where she was convinced that most of humanity was a lesser species than her. This was one of them.

In the depths of the Student Quarter stood an establishment that featured often in the more amusing reports that had crossed her desk during her secretarial duties. The Sharp Retort was a contrast to the half-timbered buildings leaning out so far over the streets that they seemed to touch. It was an old tower house of grey stone three storeys high. It apparently had been the ruined keep of the original knight who had ruled these lands before the founder of House Beetle had taken charge. Agatha hesitated at the oak doors above which hung a copper version of the tavern's namesake. She had never dared come here. There had been a few invitations from new students who had not heard of her reputation. On top of Lilith's opinions, Doctor Beetle had made it very clear she was not to lower herself to carousing. This was a mistake. 

Spike dragged her into the abode of debauchery with inhuman strength.

Agatha did not suddenly transform into a loose woman selling her charms to all and sundry upon passing the threshold. It must be a gradual process, then. The interior of the tavern was one large room with a wooden floor covered with decades worth of stains. Tables arranged in some order only known to the proprietor were scattered about it. Along the back wall was a vast bar behind which could be seen huge barrels and ranks of liquor bottles. A piping system of almost Sparky complexity was operated by an octopus in a collar and bowtie. Several other bartenders were serving customers packed three deep before them. There wasn't a spare table in view. The only concession to Doctor Beetle's death was black bunting draped along the railings of the balconies higher up on the walls. With no classes, the students of Transylvania Polygnostic had congregated at the tavern for a combination of wake and celebration of suspended exams.

As one, everyone went silent and stared at her and Spike.

What on earth was going on?

Self-consciously, she guided Spike up a stairway to one of the arcades overlooking the main floor. There were booths along the walls with leather banquettes facing each other across tiny tables. Spike sprawled in one as if it were a throne. Agatha arranged herself primly across from him. A tavern girl arrived remarkably quickly given how busy the main bar was. The buxom girl in a dirndl whose bodice had been tugged low enough to cause riots in Paris leaned forward a bit more than necessary when Spike gave their order in English. There were enough students from England that the wait-staff and merchants of the town had a very basic grasp of the language. The only confusion came when Spike asked for pints--honestly, this was civilization, it was milliliters and liters--and the possibility of ordering a "blooming onion". Agatha had to translate the the concept to the tavern girl. Giggling, the girl nudged her in the ribs before scurrying away. Soon a large pitcher of dark beer and an array of salty and fattening snacks was brought up. Spike grinned when he took one deep-fried onion petal, dipped it into a bowl of gravy, and munched it.

"Best thing to come out of America," the vampire said happily. He washed it down with a swig of beer. "Useless when it comes to beer, though. Yank beer is love in a canoe. Too fucking close to water."

"Do your kind have normal digestive functions?" Agatha sipped at her beer. Ugh. "Including elimination?"

"Nah, it disappears. Being undead means you're done with the loo." Spike tapped her stein. "Drink up. And relax, will you? I didn't drag you into a brothel."

"Not that you would guess from our hostess," Agatha said.

"Might look her up later tonight." Spike flashed his teeth. "Bet she is up for a bit of fun up against the wall later, eh?"

All of a sudden, the definition of "shagging" made contextual sense.

"What, you've never?" Spike asked. 

"Boys aren't interested in the weird girl with headaches," Agatha muttered, every inch of flesh above the neck aflame.

"Their loss," Spike said. He stared out across the tavern. "Seen stranger in demon bars. Never thought I would see something like this in a mortal place."

"This is pretty tame by the standards of the university," Agatha said. "There aren't any clanks or constructs where you come from?"

"Knew one guy who could build robots good enough to pass as people." Spike seemed a bit embarrassed about it. "Bloody thing had a personality even shallower than Harmony. I heard tell from Buffy once that someone had managed to pull off a patchwork like your mum and dad. Was all rare."

"But you have cars--those are horseless carriages, right--and planes?"

"Airplanes," Spike said. "There was a Kraut who invented blimps like what saw up in the sky. That was a good twenty years after I was turned."

"Heavier than air flight." Agatha perked up. She chugged a bit more of her beer out of reflex. "What about computation?"

"Oh, computers, Not my thing." Spike shrugged. "Near everyone had a personal computer of some sort. Willow was always tap-tapping away on one."

"EVERYONE HAD A COMPUTATION ENGINE IN THEIR HOUSE?" 

"Oi! Mum told you not to attract attention." Spike wiggled a finger in one ear.

"Sorry, sorry!" Agatha bounced on her seat. "How did they manage it? A computation engine takes up at least the size of a large desk."

"Chips. Little bits of silicon with wires in them," Spike said. "Don't know much more. If I couldn't use a wrench on it, it wasn't in my manor.'

" _The possibilities._ " Unconsciously, an atonal hum came from her as she grabbed a napkin. " _This suggests a-a solid state device that does not rely on clockwork or electromechanical logic gates--_ "

A beer nut bounced off her head.

"Geek out another time, Beaker," Spike said. "I've to pour out my sorrows before you."

"Yes. Your mysterious Buffy," Agatha said, pressing a fingertip to the dent in her brow. "We can discuss your 'chips' later."

Not that much later, she vowed.

"Buffy. Five foot and a few pence of bottle-blonde hair, mouthy attitude, and whingeing." Spike smiled fondly. "The bloody Slayer that I fell for.'

"Slayer?" Agatha asked. "Is that a hunter of your kind?"

"Mmmmm. Imagine me saying this in the fruitiest English accent with a bum stuffed with tweed," Spike said. "In every generation, a chosen one is born. One girl in all the world.'

Agatha found herself leaning forward as Spike's voice grew solemn.

"She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness."

Her breath quickened.

"She is the Slayer."


	8. Chapter 8

“‘No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it.’” Spike downed the shot glass of tuica. “Famous last words, eh? A few minutes later, I ended up turning the entire town into a crater. That was a result.”

“No final heartfelt kiss? That violatesh all the dramatic conventionsh.” Agatha worked her jaw. “Conventions. So the amulet reconstituted you and teleported you here?”

 “Nah, thing was a trap by an demonic law firm,” Spike said. “Wolfram and Hart down in LA. Their style was slow corruption. Ended up a ghost for a while, then hung about while they tried to bring over Angel and his crew to the darkness.”

 “I’d think ‘demonic law firm’ would be redundant.” Agatha poured herself another stein from a pitcher. “Were they demon-lawyers or lawyers who served demons?”

 “Bit of both, serving the ‘Senior Partners’.” Spike adopted an overly-dramatic tone while waggling his fingers on either side of his head. “In the end, the ponce decided to go out in style. We all worked to kill these blokes the Senior Partners were backing to take over the world.”

 “Another apocalyphse.” Agatha drained half her stein in one go. “How many does that make so far? Is the plural of apocalypse an ‘eschaton’?”

 “The Senior Partners were a bit miffed when we managed it,” Spike continued. “Sent a horde of demons to kill us off. Magnificent fight. Then Blue--”

 “‘Blue’?”

 “Old One that took over a girl in Angel’s crew.” Spike frowned. “Poor Fred. Yeah, Blue unleashed herself somehow. Backwash ended up sending me to that alley where we met.”

 “Huh.” Agatha teased a bit of deep-fried onion wedged between her teeth. “I wonder how much more of this I have to drink before the urge to hide under my bed for eternity passes.”

 “You’re tougher than that, Beaker,” Spike replied. “You carried me across half the town with that headache screaming in your brain.”

 “Mebbe--Maybe I cansh.” Agatha giggled. “Maybe I can be your girl sidekick. I can be taken hosh--hostage and every sho often whack shome minion in the back of the head with a wench--wrench.”

 “And this is me calling time.” Spike dumped the rest of the contents of her stein into his. “Oi! Check."

Right. Paying the bill. That was an eshensual--essential part of the transaction. Agatha fumbled in her pockets for her money purse. Coins of all denominations and countries tumbled out onto the tabletop. The official currency of Beetleburg was the Wulfenbach Imperial _faust--_ a coin that, along with the lesser schillings and pfennings, bore the winged-rook sigil on one side with a clenched fist on the other. _Ne quidem cogitant de_ was the motto inscribed on both sides as a warning against counterfeiters. Enough trade and the varied student body meant that everything from the Parisian franc to Chinese _cash_ was in local circulation. She could usually do currency conversion off the top of her head from experience helping Adam with his business accounts. For some reason, mathematics escaped her right now. She resorted to shoving the entire pile at their waitress and telling her to keep the change. The tavern wench’s response indicated that the amount was enough.

 Perhaps too much, in fact.

 Now that she thought of it, that was pretty much her entire pay as secretary along with her weekly allowance.

 Agatha took the opportunity to sneak her hand across the table to Spike’s beer stein. He was distracted by the tavern girl offering herself for an impromptu mammary exam. Agatha dumped the dregs of the tuica bottle in as well. The shock of the mixture hitting her nervous system was nothing compared to the maelstrom stirred by Spike’s tales of hellgods, petrified demons capable of swallowing the world, the First Evil, and the existence of a world without shrimp. The only defense against these unholy forces appeared to be champions who lived and died in obscurity. Buffy had suffered years of an unwanted legacy and even being torn from the peace of Heaven itself. In Europa, there would be entire libraries dedicated to her exploits. The idiotic populace of her world were blind to her service. Yet, Buffy had remained strong in spite of the curse of her legacy and the obscurity of her sacrifice.

What was her excuse?

A university bar such as the Sharp Retort had jars of mechanical pencils at every table. The beermats were sturdy enough to retain clarity in spite of being soaked in alcohol and grease. The waitress had had to bring a stack of them earlier. Agatha had run out while scribbling down all the bits of technology she had gleaned from Spike’s tales: computer chips and mobile telephones, airplanes and televisions, rockets that had sent humans to the Moon and clanks to other planets. She was quite unworthy of receiving such wonders. Uncle Barry had abandoned her for being a Heterodyne who was the exact opposite of a Spark. She just knew it. Once, she might have brought it to her Master or even the Wulfenbach Empire. Not now, of course. There were smart people in Mechanicsburg, though, who might be able to do something. Perhaps, in some small way, she could contribute to the research herself.

Strong hands lifted her to her feet. Agatha wobbled as Spike guided her down the spiral stairs. She stuck her tongue out at an obviously-disappointed waitress. Spike was her vampire, thank you very much! When they reached the bottom, they found the tables had been dragged away towards the walls. From a stage in one corner of the bar came a wild flurry of notes from piano, drums, fiddle and clarinet. A trumpet soared above them all. The old keep rocked on its foundations when dozens of feet stamped at once to the music. Agatha found herself bouncing on her toes. She had often served as dance partner to the girls that Lilith taught in ballroom dancing classes. She had never danced in public.

  _Don't make a spectacle of yourself._

_Don't attract attention._

With a wild laugh, she drew Spike into the crush.

 +++++

Why did Tarsus do it?

 He walked the streets of Beetleburg with bitterness in his heart. There had not even been the satisfaction of a decent fight. Tarsus had rested on his laurels for too long. Mr. Tock and the Clockwork Army had been pathetic opponents. All they had done was buy Tarsus enough time to set fire to his private notes. Now, the last of his mentors was dead without any hope of finding out why he had done such a foolish thing. He intended to treat the old man gently enough during the process. What would have been left would have had a quiet, comfortable retirement.

 He was getting close to resolving that entire quality-of-life issue.

 Now, all that was gained was a hive engine to analyze and a town with a reason to resent him. It was simply another nasty bit of imperial pollitics. He regarded himself as little more than a janitor these days; all there was was cleaning up the squalid messes of the various nobles and Sparks with mop and bucket. Not even his little hobby was giving him much satisfaction. There were no mysteries or adventures these days. Nothing interesting.

 "And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

You cunt, I'm not a queer"

 The voice from the alley was British. The accent was an affected lower-class one, with an educated man's tones behind it.

 "Thash naughty!" A young woman speaking English with a slight Transylvanian accent responded. "Wait, wash is 'queer' in this context?"

 "Poof. Gay. Bloke who takes it up the arse from another man."

 "Men do that?"

 "Not me. Well, there was the one time--"

 Ah, drunken students. A rare, faint smile tugged at his lips at memories of his own pub crawls when at TPU.

 You could still see the scorch marks on the brickwork here and there from nights out with Bill and Barry.

 "I'll state my case, of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full

I've traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this---now you, Beaker--"

" **I DID IT MYYYYYY WAYYYYYYYY!** "

He gestured at the Jaegers who were considerate enough to skulk amid the shadows to stay their claws. The two singers stumbled out of the alleyway that lead out from an Asylum tavern he had known very well in days past. One was a sallow man in a long leather coat a bit differently cut than the usual greatcoats. His platinum-blonde hair gleamed in the light of the gaslamp above them. Though undead, he was very good at passing for living.

His companion was-- Two grey eyebrows rose. He recognized her from that little scene at the viewing this morning. That was she was drunk according to the profile, unusual but not out of the question. Even the most positive reports of her by Doctor Glassvich--one of her few supporters on staff--painted her as a pathetic figure. Her sniveling at the funeral did not contradict that view. Falling to drink from stress was understandable.

Miss Clay had, however, decided to alter her appearance in the past few hours. Her strawberry-blonde hair was now streaked a rainbow of colours in hues usually found in chemical weapons depots. A gold ring winked in her right eyebrow. A tiny tattoo of an A in a circle was done in black ink beneath her left eye. Her green tweed skirt had been torn up the left side, and crudely pinned closed. The hem had been cut in a jagged edge running from down by her right ankle to up to where it ended an inch below one knee. A candy-cane striped stocking could be seen in the gap between it and her boot.

"Here, you know your way about this town?" the stranger asked.

"I know where my own home ish, Spike." Miss Clay wobbled. She unclipped a Heterodyne sigil locket from her throat. "Shee. Ish on the back of thish. We jush have to go--go-MYYYYY WAAAAYYYY!"

"Took us three tries to make out of of the bar." Spike lifted the back of the locket into the light. "Have an idea where this address is?"

"Head west to the square in front of the university," he replied in English. "Then south. You will see the cross street."

"Much obliged," Spike said. "Brace yourself, Beaker. You and me will be getting a talking to when we get you home."

"Blah blah don't drink. Lies! Drink is fun!" Miss Clay peered at his collar-pin. "You work for the Empire?"

"In some capacity," he said.

"Well if you shee Mr. "Call Me Gil', tell him to find his own shecretary." Miss Clay threw an arm about Spike's shoulders. "Shpike and I are shtarting a band. It will be the besht in the land."

"Fat-bottomed girls make this rocking world go--"

"I am callypigian!" Miss Clay sniffed. She switched to Romanian. "We are gonna be the next Shex Pishtols. And sholve mysherteries. An' schtuff. You tell Mr. Messy Hair that."

"Word for word."

"Thanksh." Miss Clay's eyes rolled back in her head. "Gonna shleep now."

"I swear, if you barf down the back of the coat," Spike grumbled as he slung her over on shoulder.

He watched them until they disappeared around a corner.

Whistling happily, Klaus Wulfenbach walked back to the campus secure in the knowledge that life had provided something of interest.


	9. Chapter 9

The university bells chimed nine.

In the snug bed, something stirred beneath the tangled bedclothes. An arm reached out from them like a revived corpse bursting forth from a grave. It snatched one of the many clocks scattered about the room. Its alarm spring and those of its brethren had long since wound down two hours before. A grunt came from a cavern burrowed in the center of the blankets. The pile heaved as something wriggled out of them. What lurked within tumbled onto the floorboard with a heavy thud.

Agatha cataloged all the agonies that managed to penetrate the fog in her mind. She did not count the headache among them. It was really more of a weather front of throbbing pressure. Besides, a lifetime of those had accustomed her to even what amount to a troupe of angry hammer-wielding dwarves smacking the inside of her skull. The pains from muscles that had been stretched beyond anything they had experienced before demanded more of her attention. What in the name of Jove had she been doing last night? There had been drinking. There had been dancing. A film reel slowly turned in her mind as she recalled something about a bet. The bet had involved someone from her Mechanical Systems classes, a top hat, and high-kicking.

The projection on the inner screen of her mind came into focus.

Agatha would not have had to pay for her own uniform had she decided to take a commission in Queen Albia's forces. Her entire body would satisfy the requirements for a red coat. Agatha lurched to her feet like a clank with stripped cognition-engine gears. There was a mirror above the sink tucked into one corner of the room. Stopping uo the drain, she dunked her entire face into a sinkfull of cold water until her breath gave out.. Then she confronted her reflection. Fingers touched the streaks in her hair from dye that one of the chemistry students at the bar had brewed in a portable kit. The ring in her eyebrow and the tattoo had been applied when someone had brought in one of the tattooists who clustered about the airship docks. Agatha slowly explored the rest of her body for any other additions. 

Then she delicately checked herself to see if--along with stewed and tattooed--she had engaged in the third activity traditional in an airshipman's leave. An extremely hazy part of the film reel suggested that snogging had occurred. What had been his name? Harry? No, Hadrian. Agatha groaned. Spike had had to drag her out of the man's lap. A very gentle probe found that nothing had been, ah, breached during that episode. When had the clothes come off, then? The film reel advanced. With dread, Agatha turned about to stare into her open closet. She slowly drew out one of her dresses. It had been hacked, stitched, and patched with bits of other clothing. A vague memory of Spike talking about punk fashion became much more clear. 

_Let your freak flag fly while you, lamb._

This was the fall from virtue that Lilith hard warned her against.

Red fire, that had been fun.

Fun.

She had enjoyed herself. Immensely. 

Sweet lightning, she had never felt so free. She had drank herself stupid. She had laughed. She had apparently smoked enough cigarettes for her mouth to qualify as the cinderbox of a Corbetite locomotive. She had made a complete idiot of herself. So what? They all thought she was one anyway. Agatha looked in the mirror again. The face looking back at her wasn't the sad, frustrated girl that she had seen every morning. Agatha had no idea what she was now. Possibly she was now a circus performer with those ridiculous streaks in her hair. That was fine. She wasn't even Agatha Clay any more, was she? Everything that she had thought herself to be was a lie. Maybe it was time that she changed what she was.

Agatha sniffed. Maybe she should clean up. Last night had left her smelling like a cadaver that had been out of the cold room too long. Hot baths in the Clay household meant heating upon the stove. She made do with a thorough scrubbing with sponge and rag in cold water in the galvanized-steel tub tucked beside her wardrobe. The harsh soap that a thrifty Lilith cooked up herself at least banished the miasma. It did not take out out the dye in her hair after a vigorous wash in the sink. Agatha spent some time selecting the most presentable item in her wardrobe. The outfit made her appear to be a cross between a Montmartre tart and a militant gypsy. Tongues would wag at how the hemline was just above her boot-tops. 

Agatha sighed and raised a clenched fist.

"Anarchy now?"

++++

"--and you will be the one paying for replacing the clothes you ruined!"

Lilith's tirade was cut off after Agatha slammed the front door shut. Her eared burned from the humiliation of being scolded like a six-year-old girl. Her foster mother was the most patient person she had ever known. That patience had reached its limits last night after being carried home over Spike's shoulder. Apparently she had declaimed the entirety of Sid Vicious' "My Way" in the parlor before doing a ballast dump of her stomach on the carpet. Adam's reaction had hurt even more. One look at her had sent him into silent, teary guffaws.

Needless to say, Spike had been told in no uncertain terms to find other quarters before sunrise. That stung. He had tried to bring her home when she had foolishly taken his pace of alcohol consumption as a baseline. She did not doubt that he had found shelter. The vampire had survived over a century, if even half his tales were true, of a nomadic life across an entire world. Spike was likely holed up in some shadowed corner with one of the blood jars she had taken from the university hospital. Agatha snorted. In a pinch, he could always hide under the skirts of the tavern girl who now had all her coin. She had still cost him refuge while he was recovering.

"Hoy, nize look, keed."

And of course, Zudok had appeared right behind her to provide the rotten cherry atop the sewage sundae that was this morning.

"I got laughed enough at from my dad," Agatha said.

"Vot? Hy mean it." Zudok strolled beside her like the world's most inappropriate suitor. "Eet makes you look verra toff and rowr. Meester Gil gun go cvazy over eet."

"Meester Gil can--" Agatha rubbed her brow. There was a very hazy memory. Something about a message? "Master Gilgamesh will probably fire me for coming in in these rags."

"He spent four years in Paris, keed," Zudok replied. "You heff to vork verra hard to rival those gorls. Oh, here. Dis from Hadrian."

"Hadrian?" Agatha examined the black top hat with jade medallions on either side. "Right. The bet. With the...high-kicking."

"Hyu beat heem, hyu gets de hat. Dems de rulez," Zudok said with almost religious fervor. "Hadrian is a goot Mechanicsburg boy. Hy tink he vill vant to ask you out."

"Because of course I acted like the town velocipede," Agatha said.

"Eh? Keed, hyu act like propah Mechanicsburg gorl." Zudok shook his head. "Hy nevah understand vy pipple outside de town tink dot gorls actink on vat dey vant makes dem bad."

"I thought you were Master Gilgamesh's supporter for my hand." Agatha tilted the top had atop her head at a rakish angle. 

"It not interestink vit vun horse in de race." Zudok rubbed his hands. "Now ve heff Hadrian and hyu dark vampire lover."

"Spike is not my lover," Agatha replied. "He's a friend."

"Dun say dot, it skew the odds ov de pool."

It was not as if she had any actual dignity to lose, Agatha told herself. She steeled herself for the inevitable as she walked through the university gates. A good half of the students milling about the quadrangle stared at her. Then they clapped in applause. Stunned, Agatha stood in shock as her fellow students slapped her on the back and gave her thumbs up. Several came up to thank for for making that night in the Sharp Retort the most enjoyable in years. They all anticipated her next performance. The film reel in her mind replayed a part of the evening where she and Spike had muscled onto the stage to introduce Europa to punk rock. As the "Sex Pistols". 

She and Spike were apparently booked every night for a month.

Agatha walked numbly beside Zudok as he guided her to one of the large mechanical labs. Within the great structure lay Mr. Tock. The twenty-meter tall clank's head had been removed from its body. A huge hole revealed the damaged insides of Beetleburg's most potent defense. A team of student volunteers swarmed over it under the direction of Gilgamesh Wulfenchbach. Beside him stood a huge man in dark-but-impeccable formal clothing. His nearly-white hair was almost as ruffled as his son's. His features were more gaunt, set in a a grumpy scowl. Agatha stood at attention as Baron Wulfenbach regarded her.

"Miss Clay," the feared tyrant of half of Europa rumbled. "I conveyed your message to my son."

"Message?" Agatha suddenly had a horribly clear recollection of that last part of the evening.

"Of your decision to pursue your dreams of musical success."

"We would not want to deny her the opportunity to take Paris by storm," his son said.

"May I request the traditional blindfold?” Agatha asked.

“We would not deprive Europa of an up-and-coming diva.” Gilgamesh nodded at his father. “Do you think that is enough, or should be draw it out?”

“Enough, I think.” The Baron’s nodded to her. “Off you go, Miss Clay. Mr. Dolokhov awaits you in the Master of the University’s office.”

“Yes, Herr Baron.” Agatha curtsied. “My apologies for the lateness. It will not happen again.”

“See that it does not.” 

And with that, Agatha started her day.


	10. Chapter 10

They had almost hidden the evidence of Doctor Beetle's death in his office. The broken, scorched furnishings had all been replaced from stocks brought by the invasion fleet. Holes in the walls were plastered over; the damage was concealed behind tapestries and bookshelves. Where her mentor's corpse had come to rest was disguised by rugs laid down on the oak floorboards. It completely changed the appearance of the room. Agatha thought that was the only way she could have stayed as long as she did. She did not think she could stand seeing a stranger behind Doctor Beetle's desk.

The little desk where she worked when not attending to the Tyrant of Beetleburg had been destroyed along with the rest of the old furniture. That meant the change of clothes she stashed there in case she stumbled while serving Beetle a meal had been wiped out as well. Redefining herself was all very well. Agatha was still very conscious that her state of dress was not appropriate to the station of private secretary to the Master of the University. The reactions of the faculty called into the office had been one of open contempt. Agatha knew that, in many of her classes, she was kept on only due to her patron`s favor. Without it, she had a nasty feeling that she would be given the boot.

The only person not to react to her appearance was Boris Dolokhov. He had simply studied her a moment through his square-lensed pince-nez before ordering her to begin a summary of Doctor Beetle's file system. Everything about him was boring. He even made having four arms seem nondescript. Spontaneity and excitement were sucked into a blandness event horizon. Rumour was that any sense of humour aside from a dessiccated wit had been driven out of him when his previous employer had decided to turn a trained librarian into his court jester. After dealing with Silas Merlot's petty spite, Agatha found working under Herr Dolokhov incredibly soothing.

The door to the Master of the University's inner sanctum opened. Bits of conversation came in from the meeting room beyond where Doctor Beetle had once held court. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach shook the hands of the guild leaders and burghers of the town council. Agatha forced herself to concentrate on her tasks. Even so, her fist tightened around a fountain pen when the Baron's heir flopped into the seat behind the great desk dominating the inner office. Like Gilgamesh himself, it was a replacement brought in by the Empire. It still rankled seeing him sprawl out where her Master had once sat with such dignity.

"Do we have any copies of that manual about employee relations that escaped the collective papal ban?" Gilgamesh said.

"There is one in the Black Library aboard the Castle," Boris said. "I take it you may need to implement his policy on firing squads."

"Not yet." Gilgamesh toyed with a model on his desk. "If the council keeps on harping about that Corbetite terminal, I may have them assigned to work on the roadbed work gang."

Stay quiet, Agatha told herself. Do not attract attention.

"Have you considered a biplane arrangement?" her traitorous mouth said.

"Miss Clay! I did not even notice you were here," Gilgamesh said. Then he focused on the model of the heavier-than-air machine in his hand. " _Biplane. Yes. That would induce drag due to the bracing required. There would be a corresponding increase in lift without needing the larger wing area of a monoplane--_ "

"Miss Clay is professional aside from her choice of dress." One of Boris' arms flashed out to snatch the model from Gilgamesh' hand; another replaced it with one of her reports. "Perhaps it is a sign of mourning rending her garments. Otherwise, she has translated the late incumbent's file system to account for Imperial standards."

"You just earned the equivalent of a medal of valour," Gilgamesh said, examining her work. "And everyone said you were the classic bumbling minion. Doctor Beetle was hiding you, wasn't he?"

"Not at all!" Her throat closed up. "Nothing to hide."

"He was likely worried we would snatch you up," Gilgamesh said. "So you have an interest in flying machines."

"Just a bit from a conversation last evening," Agatha replied. "All a blur. I can't recall who I was talking to."

"Ah, like those nights in Paris." Gilgamesh sighed happily. He beamed. "I would love to hear what insights you have. Dinner, later?"

"I--" Agatha cast about for a reason to avoid the attention of the Wulfenbachs. "I have a date! With Hadrian"

"I heard that you were in the company of a _nosferatu_ called Spike."

"I have a date with him too," Agatha found herself saying. 

"You would definitely fit in in Paris." Gilgamesh rummaged on his desk, producing a slim book. "My notes of heavier-than-air flight. Review them. I expect you to be up to date when I ask you to assist in the lab."

"I have--" Agatha mentally threw up her hands in despair. "Yes, Master Wulfenbach."

"I keep telling you, it's Gil." He nodded at Boris. "We can let her go, can't we? A lady does need time to prepare for her dates."

"We can muddle along without her," Boris agreed. One hand produced a familiar casing from his pocket. "Miss Clay, this is yours."

"This was to be buried with Beetle." Fury rose up in her. "It was my last gift to him!"

"Did you create it, then?" Gilgamesh asked.

"No. I--ah, I found it. In an alley that morning," Agatha said.

"A dead Spark's most devoted minion slips a mysterious device into his coffin," Boris said. "Of course, the Baron would have it examined. You are fortunate he deemed it a harmless bit of clockwork."

"I did not think it would be seen that way," Agatha admitted. "So there is nothing special about it?"

"If there had been, he would have seen you personally," Gilgamesh said, looking oddly disturbed. 

Agatha waited until she was down the corridor and around the corner from the Master's offices before pounding her head lightly against the wall. She was supposed to be avoiding the attention of the Wulfenbachs. Now she was apparently going to be a lab minion. What was all that about asking her to dinner? That was oddly sociable for a master to a minion. Could Gilgamesh want her to let her guard down so that she might reveal more about herself? The Heterodyne Boys penny sparklies were full of devious masterminds who could winkle out secrets. Clearly, Gil was one of them. Only her blurting out that she had a date had saved her from his Machiavellian plans.

Correction: dates.

If she wanted to transform her image, that was certainly going to do wonders for her reputation.

Agatha probed her memories for the elusive Hadrian Somethingclaw. She had a nigh-eidetic recall of musical scores, scientific information, and every slight rendered unto her. Other students merged into one blob of sneering laughter. Frowning, Agatha worked until she had an image of a man with hair dark as coal. He had a widow's peak and sideburns, perhaps. On his right hand-- Aha! _Greenclaw!_ His right hand was a jade-green prosthetic hand with slim talons on the end. He had a vicious habit of scraping them across a blackboard to quiet a room when acting as a teacher's assistant. They had been most gentle when he had her shirtwaist undone and was cupping her--

Oh.

That had been around the time that Spike had extricated her from his lap.

Her face was still damp from splashing it in a water fountain when she entered the Reading Room. The vast octagon-shaped chamber was even larger than the chapel. The librarian's desk occupied the center, surrounded by ranks of student carrels that rose on terraces to the walls. Stained-glass windows of Van Rijn's Muses filtered light beneath a dome where scarabs carried suns in their mandibles. She went directly to the library's reference engine. A bank of switches, gauges, and a typewriter keyboard surrounded a cathode-ray display like an oscilloscope's. She was an old hand at using the hulking computational engine. A carefully-constructed query brought up what books Transylvania Polygnostic had on aerodynamics and any sort of flight.

A punch-card popped out of a slot after she selected the most useful of her finds. Agatha carried it to the study carrel she usually used in the upper reaches of the terraces. Another slot digested the punch-card encoded with her requests. A stopwatch-dial above it flicked to the five-minute mark before counting down. The stacks of the university's collection were closed to any save the Master or his subordinates. The rules on borrowing books was draconian. It was rumoured that, in fact, there was an old dragon kept specifically to consume any who violated the rules. She would have to wait until the books were delivered to her carrel.

Agatha did not intend to open Gilgamesh's notes until she had crammed a basic understanding of the subject. Instead, she toyed with the prize she had won last evening. Gah. She would like nothing better than to forget it ever happened. But she did take classes in Herr Greenclaw's derpartment. They needed to talk before any, ah, misunderstandings happened. It would have been much easier to contact him when the university networks and the Clockwork Army were operational. She could simply have asked the university clanks to inform Herr Greenclaw she wished to see him. It would have been stretching the remit of her access. But she had done it many times when Doctor Beetle had wanted someone brought to him.

*BING*

Agatha started. 

She looked down to see her free hand has slipped into a greatcoat pocket.

She must have been winding up that little device.

Slowly, something climbed out using two little arms and two little legs.

"You work," Agatha whispered. “That is impossible. Nothing I make ever works.”

A single eye stared out expectantly out of the center of the pocket-watch casing.

“The Baron must have fixed you somehow when he examined you,” Agatha muttered. 

*DING*

“SHHHHH!” Agatha hissed. “Quiet.”

The little clank muted itself to inquisitive chimes.

“Just hide for now.” Agatha smiled beatifically. “So that later I can _open you up and see what makes you tick, you wonderful little thing you._ ”

The clank dashed behind the card reader, one eye poking out suspiciously at her.

“ _Although if somehow I could get word to Hadrian Greenclaw to meet me here--”_

++++

Within the clank, gears and springs worked in a way that would have had a certain Baron re-evaluating his first impressions of the device.

A task order was worked out.

The little clank wormed its way into the card reader.

As a young woman accepted books from an automated cart, the little clank wound up a new ope slightly less sophisticated.

*BING*

*DING*

+++++

The second clank flipped through a closed file drawer in the archives of Transylvania Polygnostic.

It examined the picture of the student within.

*CLICK*

+++++

A half-hour later, dozens of little clanks flew and skittered unnoticed on their mission.


	11. Chapter 11

Even with revival in play, there was never enough space to accomadate all the dead of in Europa. A town such as Beetleburg had little enough space within its walls for the living. Putting a graveyard outside them was out of the question in a world where they might be re-animated by an attacker. So those who died in the town were stripped by beetles and their bones interred in ossuraries. One had to pay rent for a private burial. If the ferryman's tithe was absent, then the bones were removed into the catacombs for a family able to pay for the privilege of a tomb. The matter of rent had given rise to certain arrangements concerning the constructs termed "undead."

She spurned the offer of a shuttered lantern when crossing the jackal-headed caretaker's palm with silver. The flickering light of votive candles was enough for her to see by. Sleepy greetings came from various alcoves and niches. Her work was known even her among those who had sought her and her husband's aid. With softness of step that would astonish many, she slipped deeper into the catacombs. She left behind the expensive single burial places for the family tombs where several generations had their bones laid to rest among one another. Her quarry lay atop a sarcophagus with his derby over his face, head pillowed on his rolled-up coat.

"They sank the bloody island." His voice came mournfully through his hat. "'London is drowning' was supposed to be a metaphor."

"Herr Spike, the locket," Lilith asked. 

"Bugger that." Spike tilted the derby back. "Wha', did they all decide to go to the loo at once?"

"I need to know if anything happened to Agatha's locket in the alley," Lilith said.

"Hang on." Spike's fingers twitched as if about to reach for the pack in his pocket. "Damn me. I should have guessed, what with seeing all those cursed items about back home. Yeah, it got broken in half."

"Three days out of its influence." Lilith sounded puzzled. "She should have shown more overt signs."

"So, she's one of them." Spike raised a scarred brow. "And you kept that thing on her, making her weak and stupid."

"The Master had to," Lilith replied. "She began the process at _five_. It becomes more dangerous the younger it occurs. He had to keep her safe and hidden."

"She'll want your guts for garters when she finds out," Spike said.

"That isn't what concerns me." A sack clinked as she passed it over. "Events may happen very quickly. We may have to hide."

"You're trusting me, who's leading her to ruin?" Spike pocketed it. "Not that I mind the dosh. Those college boys will find out how I'm skinning them at cards sometime."

"We have seen creatures such as you become companions time and again." Lilith grimaced. "Although I would prefer you not introduce her to more vices."

"She's a curious lass. Can't promise she won't sniff them out." Spike sighed. "Remind me a bit of Buffy's mum, you do. She asked me once to take care of the niblet if worst came to worst."

"Get her to the Castle in Mechanicsburg," Lilith said. "It is the only sure sanctuary for her."

"Might as well." Spike settled the hat back over his face. "Considering heading home means I'll have to become a sea monkey."

The vampire sang something about a yellow submarine as she hurried out of the catacombs. Lilith took care to lower her veil before stepping out into the street. No-one recognized her in her widow's blacks. She would return them to the fellow construct who owned a second-hand clothes shop just down Forge Street; then she could change back into her own clothing before slipping back through the alley to home. There was no sign that the house was under serious surveillance. The only watcher was Zudok who left his post to herd Agatha between university and residence. The day they could not outwit a Jaeger was the day when they should call themselves retired.

Why had Agatha not broken through? Master Barry had been insistent that the locket could not be removed without great risk. The emotional turmoil of the past few days was ample fuel for a violent breakthrough. There should have been an attack against the two most likely focuses of her grief: Klaus or his son. Yet there had only been the emotional outbursts and greater appetite of a post-breakthrough high. All that could have been attributed to the stress from Doctor Beetle’s death. Had Agatha’s spark been so repressed that it had been extinguished?

Had Lilith Clay looked up at the swarm of little clanks flying in a grid pattern around the town, she would have had her answer.

++++++

There was something about reading a Spark's notes in their own hand that no textbook could replicate. Not even reprints captured the essence of one of the greats jotting down insight in the throes of a fit of genius. Masters such as Doctor Beetle could make a waffle recipe a thing of awe. 

Call-Me-Gil's notes of heavier than air flight had that dash of mad brilliance that only the most powerful Sparks possessed; there was a verve and energy in his private musings that Agatha had only seen in the earliest of her late Master's notes. It was almost cute, actually, the way the first notes were done in crayon and splotched ink. Birds and dragonflies and flying pigs had been doodled in the same spirit she had drawn her own fantasies sitting bored at the town school until entering TPU at fourteen.

The signs of the Spark came into his notes so very early. He could not have been more than ten when his whims became invested with the power of a madboy. It became a wild dance as Agatha had to refer to her reference material to clarify a leap of logic or arcane theory. It was like playing a duet with a squid-clank set to Ludicrous Speed. _She had to cudgel her damaged mind to the utmost as wild hypotheses and outre engineering soared up as if seeking the highest reaches of heaven. The paltry material of mundane science was swiftly left behind. There was only a staircase of alien logic that she climbed up with gales threatening to rip her off like some Icarus sent pinwheeling to her doom._

_What was frustrating was that Gil was getting it_ **_wrong wrong oh this would not do! That engine was far too complicated. So very clever and utterly uneccessary. Agatha snarled at it . Paper. Helpful hands pushed a pile of it in front of her. Pencil! Ruler! Compass! She hummed as she traced an exploded diagram with helpful captions about how half the mechanisms in his engine were inefficient fripperies. You could rip them all out, rework the remains into something actually useful, and the result would have twice the power-to-weight ratio. That left a lovely pile of bits that could be used for ever so many neat things--_ **

A whistle sent her doomtrain of thought crashing off the side of a cliff.

" ** _Why did you do that?_** " Agatha snapped at her little clank.

"I received your message," came a voice behind her.

"Oh!" Agatha swiveled about. Hadrian Greenclaw stood behind her with the oddest expression on his face. "Yes., I did ask for you, didn't I? Um, are you okay?"

"I thought I heard--" Hadrian shook his head,. "My imagination. Something lost."

"Well, at least you found me," Agatha said.

"Hardly difficult," Hadrian said. "Your ingenious little devices brought me right to you."

Devices?

Sitting on Hadrian's shoulder was a one-eyed little clank with a spherical body and two intermeshed rotors on top. Agatha whipped her head about. Her little pocketwatch clank waved amid at least ten of them about the carrel.

"I didn't make them," Agatha said faintly. "This one I, ah, found must have recruited others."

"So you have captured the heart of them as you have mine." Hadrian laid his namesake over his heart.

"Ah, last night wasn't me." Agatha flushed. "I am not that sort of girl."

"You mean sensual, intelligent, and bewitching?" Hadrian replied. 

"Put away the trowel." Agatha couldn’t help smiling. "I was drunk. Sober, I am simply plain Agatha Clay."

"Then I must get to know that girl better." Hadrian snatched up the engine diagram. "I have no idea what bushel you have been hiding your light under. But this is amazing!"

"It's likely nothing but drivel," Agatha grabbed from him. She tucked it into the pages of Gil's notebook. "You know me, I can't make anything without it blowing up."

"I swear, those could be a Spark's work." Hadrian offered his green mechanical hand. "Could I have the honor of perusing a lovely young lady's ideas over lunch?"

Agatha's stomach chose that moment to inform her of its displeasure.

"Could eat a horse, could you?"

"Stable, as it turns out." Agatha smacked her lips. "I hope you don't mind paying."

"There is a place just around the corner from my flat that does an authentic Mechanicsburg snail goulash," Hadrian said.

"Better order a tureen," Agatha said. "I hope you don't plan later on luring me into your apartments to see your blueprints."

"Certainly not on the first date," Hadrian said.

Every single warning about rakes and cads flitted through her mind. Plain old Miss Clay would have shied away from the arm of a man she had engaged in immodest actiivities while under the influence of alcohol. It was Agatha _Heterodyne_ who took his arm for her first date. Hadrian Greenclaw might indeed could be a rake--or in fact, an entire shed's worth of yard implements--for all she cared. Feeling him press against her sent a thrill through her that was almost as good as Gil's notes. It did not feel awkward. It felt...nice. Better than nice. Artistic instincts that hitherto had been academic became less so. The widow's peak in his jet-black hair set off his severe-yet-handsome features very nicely. There was an undertone of longing in his expression that sent her stomach flip-flopping like a cadaver under the wires.

It felt more as if she had offered her arm than Hadrian had his.

The horde of clanks let out mechanical wolf-whistles. Annoyed faces peered out from around the other carrels. Agatha hissed an order for them to hide. They scurried out of sight with amazing speed. Setting the books into a returns cart, she walked arm-and-arm with Hadrian through the halls of Transyvlania Polygnostic. The double-takes that met them from students and professors explained so much about the ones that she had gotten when entering the Sharp Retort with Spike. When they crossed the ground to the gate, she could not help pressing closer to Hadrian when passing beneath the window of the Master of the University's office. 

Hah! She had escaped the grasp of the Wulfenbachs.

"Ho, zo hyu two luvmonsters heff gotten together," Zudok said

Oh, _no._

"I am escorting Miss Clay to lunch," Hadrian said, undaunted by the Jaeger.

"Zo sveet." Zudok grinned. "But hyu velocipede built for two gonna have to be a tricycle. Orders. Hy go vere she goes anyvere between home undt school."

"I suppose we do require a chaperone," Hadrian said.

"Dun vorry, I suddenly see a dirigible iffen you vant to make vit de kissink." Zudok proffered Agatha a package wrapped in brown paper. "Ho, gorl, hyu date a Mechanicsburg boy, hyu need these."

Agatha accepted it with all the eagerness of handling live plague samples.

She carefully tore back a corner.

"Weasel-print pajamas?" 

"I'll--I'll explain on the way." Hadrian grimaced. "Thank you, Zudok."

"Dun mention it."


	12. Chapter 12

Mechanicsburg snail goulash was delicious as long as one did not think about what went into it. She had devoured two tureens' worth along with half of Hadrian's own roast chicken, several bread baskets, a plate of shortbread trilobites, and a good portion of a bottle of reisling. Sweet lightning, Hadrian should have herded her down to the Shambles to sell her to the nearest pork butcher. Even walking about, she could not resist asking him to buy her the odd jellied fish or mimmoth-on-a-stick.. Her body craved food like the great furnaces under Transylvania Polygnostic demanded radium.

It must be the company, she decided, Agatha shivered in pleasure at the feel of cool metal clasping her left hand. Hadrian had never broken contact from the time they had left the library. He was always brushing a hand or pressing a knee against her during the meal. Several times, he had slipped steel fingers through her hair. Lilith would have called a young lady "fast" for permitting such contact from a man she barely knew. Well, stick her in the Defrictionalizer and reduce her co-efficient to zero. Touch had become as heightened as her other senses of late. The sensation of his body against her side through several layers of cloth was even more intense than her inebriated memories of lap-time at the Sharp Retort.

Hadrian was _smart_. He _listened_. The flood-gates had burst open the moment they had sat down for lunch. Agatha had not stopped talking in between bites for what seemed like hours. There was just so much to say. There was an entire life's worth of imagination and dreams and ideas that had been bottled up. They needed to be let out _out_ ** _out_**. She had not had to resort to napkins and placemats this time around. Dear Hadrian had bought a stack of notebooks and a pack of pencils on the way to the restaurant. It was as if he instinctively knew she would need them. Half the reason they had spent the meal huddled up beside each other was his own need to analyze on the billion-and-one ideas she had.

Oh! That was exactly what she needed for the protoype of the personal computation engine that they had worked out together over the third glass of wine. Hadrian obligingly paid off the stunned stallkeeper after she had finished explaining in detail precisely how it work optimizing memory storage. Agatha had a pang of shame for how much he was laying out. It was ridiculous, really. Mind you, his purse never seemed empty. He really was very well-dressed for a student; the usual rule of thumb was shabby penury even for the students from wealthy families. Hadrian handed over the part to Zudok. If they had to endure his constant presence, then the Jaeger would damn well serve as a pack-mule for her purchases as compensation.

Agatha did a double-take at the sheer amount of packages Zudok was loaded down with. 

"I didn't realize I had asked for that much," Agatha said. "I don't want to put you in the poorhouse, Hadrian."

"Ho, hyu heff to buy more dun dot to beggar a Greenclaw," Zudok said, peering around the pile in his arms. 

"Our family were the chief machinists in town," Hadrian explained. "The Old Masters rewarded us well for our work."

"Ja, his uncle is big cheesewheel in de Court of Gears." Zadok winked. "Charlemagne Greenclaw is respectable legitimate businessman on de op and op."

"I"ve read the usual tourist material about Mechanicsburg," Agatha said. "It would be interesting to get an insider's view of life there."

"It really is quite boring," Hadrian replied. His smile seemed brittle. "Of course, I would love to show you about if you decided to visit."

"I was thinking of moving there," Agatha said. "The university won't be too friendly after the Baron's son leaves. I was considering taking a break from academia, anyway."

"Then consider the Institute of the Extraordinary in Paris," Hadrian said. "Not Mechanicsburg."

"You really arenn't much of a booster for your home town," Agatha said.

"Dot's cawze he being nice." Zudok's usual joviality was gone. "He trying not to say that if hyu try to move in, mebbe hyu heff bad accident."

"The town is a clannish place," Hadrian said. "There are matters there that outsiders are not meant to know."

"Matters of life and death?" Agatha's throat was dry.

"Indeed." Hadrian sagged. "Besides, the town is dying."

"Keed, hyu heff to have fsith," Zudok insisted.

"They are gone. There has been no sign of a heir for ages." Fury flashed across his features. "We smile and sing and dance while the tourists walk about the dead corpse that is Mechanicsburg. For what are we without a Heterodyne?"

"Vun must be out dere somevere," Zudok said. "Ve must wait until de end of de world for him to come back."

"Or her." It slipped out.

"Don't be silly, the Heterodynes almost always had sons." Hadrian chuckled. "The Heterodyne Girl is simply a bit of propoganda spread by those hearkening back to the days of the Storm King."

"Hy bet she vould smell verra nize," Zudok said.

"Someday, your Heterodyne will come home," Agatha said. The university bells rang in the distance. "I have to go home. Meet me tomorrow morning at the gates?"

"I will count every minute and second," Hadrian insisted.

It would not be out of line for her to say farewell with a chaste kiss. That is what she told herself. She only meant for a peck on the cheek. His head must have moved accidentally because her lips met his and this was too fast even for her yet _it felt so good. Therre was such yearning and pain in him, a hole in the world, which she had to soothe. He was_ ** _hers blood and bone and brain. A vast stream like a river of pure galvanic essence surged through them. Her flesh should be seared and fat melting off bones blackened from the heat. But she was fine, better than ever. She had been feeling better ever since--_**

Hadrian whimpered when her head snapped back.

**_ever since_** _that morrning when her_ locket had been broken.

There were red furrows gouged into the right side of Hadrian's face. Agatha did not notice the crimson dripping from the nails of her left hand. Zudok made as if to follow her until she glared at him. He hesitated long enough for her to plunge into an alley. She ran blindly through alleys and streets until as tears dripped down her cheeks. She tore the locket free from her throat. It could not be true. No, no, they would not have watched as she lived in pain and stupidity. Her Uncle Barry could not have done that to her. The two halves of the locket popped open when she savagely twisted it.

Calm swept through her when she saw the empty hollows within the halves of the locket. Good. She could think so clearly now. Agatha cleaned off the blood in a rain barrel. She was almost serene by the time she came home. Agatha was up the stairs to her room before Lilith could catch her. Her foster mother watched as the patchwork contents of the wardrobe were folded on the bed one by one. Agatha had never traveled much. She did have two carpet bags for the rare times she had accompanied Doctor Beetle _who must have known aboui it too_ to conferences and diplomatic functions.

She paused by the handprints on the doorframe that marked each growth spurt in her youth. The carpet bags were heavy in her hands. Adam blocked the entrance to the workshop. He moved aside, though, when she looked into his face. She donned goggles and gloves. A crucible was selected. The forge fire was stoked. Opening the locket, she picked out a chisel from the rack above the workbench where she had watched her foster father ply his craft.

A massive hand closed about her wrist.

"They are not coming back," Agatha said. The chisel pried out the portraits easily. "They did not abandon me because I was broken. It is because they are dead. I am the last."

"Child, Master Barry had to suppress your Spark," Lilith said. "Had he not, you would have killed yourself breaking through at such a young age."

"You never even thought it worth telling me when I was older," Agatha said. 

Adam bowed his head.

"No, that is the last of Maser Barry's work!" Lilith exclaimed..

"Too much of a risk of identifying me." The dark-haired man and his blonde wife burned up in an instant. "After all, we have to do everything to keep me hidden."

Adam huffed.

"I will always love you." Agatha smiled at them both. "You did so much for me. It must have really hurt to watch me suffer."

Agatha picked up the crucible in a pair of tongs.

"I spent all my money last night." Agatha tossed in the golden locket. "This should be enough for a first month's rent."

Adam hugged Lilith close when Agatha shoved the crucible deep into the flames.

+++++

"Beaker." Spike nodded to Agatha. "Found out, yeah?"

"I'll be here only for one night." Agatha brushed dust off the niche opposite him. "This is really quite cozy. I do need space to work."

"Could use some space myself." Spike waggled his pack. "Fag?"

" _Danke_." Smoke spiraled up as she settled down, drawing a winding shroud over as a blanket.

"Nice pajamas," Spike noted.

"They are warm." Agatha laid her head on a carpet bag. 

"Your mum and dad fuck you up," Spike said. "They don't mean to, but they do."

"Spike? Is anything going to be alright ever again?"

"What do you want me to say, Beaker?"

Green eyes filled with pain closed tight.

"Lie to me."


	13. Chapter 13

Agatha squirmed. She had to change the mattress stuffing. It had gone as hard as a rock overnight. Red fire, what a nightmare she had had last night. It was a dream where her parents had betrayed her in the worst possible way. She had stumbled out of the only home she had known for years with carpet bags in hand. Door after door had been closed to her when, seeing her punk outfit, landlords had slammed them shut while making the sign of the cross. Eventually, she had been driven underground into the catacombs.  
  
Fingers traced stone underneath her.  
  
Questing fingers found nothing at her throat.  
  
_I will not cry_. Agatha clenched her fists hard enough for her nails to bite into the base of her palms. Bawling like the weak, pathetic thing she had been for too long was not going to help matters. Buffy had managed to continue on after being ripped from paradise, hadn't she? Agatha could damn well pull up her big-girl pantalettes. So no-one in the Student Quarter was willing to risk renting to a girl who appeared one step away from selling her favors. Fine. There had to be someone willing to rent her a room. Or else she could find some obscure corner in Transylvania Polygnostic to rest her head.  
  
Soft chimes and _dings_ came from all around. Her little clank with its own eye and pocket-watch casing jumped onto her chest. Agatha snatched it up with delight. _Something she had made worked!_ She had never been broken. She had been chained down instead. Red fire, she was a true Spark! Her first invention uttered muffled chimed when she clutched it between her breasts. A metallic shuffling brought more of them into view. Where had they all come from? Not a single one looked like the others, though there were variations on a theme among them.   
  
"Quirky little buggers, these doozers," Spike said, from his niche across from her.   
  
"What an amusing name for them." Agatha kissed the first one. "Such precious abominations of nature you are."  
  
"What they called those green builder folk of _Fraggle Rock_." Spike whistled a tune "'Take your cares away.' The bit used to watch it when she would sneak over to the tomb."  
  
"I couldn't have made these in my sleep," Agatha said.  
  
"They make themselves," Spike said. "Heard Fred gassing on this sort of thing with that bastard Knox, one time I was haunting the lab. Von Norman swarm?"  
  
"A self-replicating hive of clanks. I never heard of anything like it." Agatha lifted up--er--Doozer Prime to eye level. "What can you do besides make others?"  
  
Doozer Prime jumped down and tugged her notes out from her greatcoat pocket.  
  
"You can make these?"  
  
Doozer Prime nodded its entire casing.  
  
"Oi, can you do renos too?" Spike said. "There's some cozy mausoleums here. Lay in some plumbing and electric, make it nice for the both of us."  
  
"I'd prefer regularly sleeping in a tomb for when I can't avoid it," Agatha said.  
  
"No-one in town will rent out cellar space to an undead." Spike shrugged. "Suit yourself, Beaker. Come by and visit when you find someplace to rest your head.”  
  
Spike settled back onto his literal deathbed. He picked up a copy of Ovid that had been lying beside him. Agatha idly watched the doozers at work as she waited for her alarm to ring. The ones made by Doozer Prime were almost as well-made as itself. The secondary generation's creations were more simplistic. The products of the tertiary generation were primitive. That appeared to be a limiting factor to them becoming a swarm that would bury the earth itself beneath its weight. Still, she ordered them not to exceed more than three hundred clanks.   
  
The clock she had set to wake her for work finally jangled. Yawning, Agatha padded up a level to one of the mortuary rooms where those unable to afford a funeral home were attended to. A gratuity to the catacomb-keeper got a few minutes inside to use cold water from a tap to bathe with rag and soap normally used to wash down bodies. Urgh. She was not squeamish about death. Doctor Merlot had used to assign her morgue duty as punishment often enough. That did not mean she wanted to bed down in one of the cadaver drawers.  
  
She mused over the problem as she walked towards TPU through the almost-deserted streets of the town. She had set her alarm very early. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach had indulged her once. He might not be so understanding if she seemed bent on defying him. Besides, she really needed the money. Agatha mentally calculated how much each meal would cost her when she paid for a buttered roll and strong black tea from a food cart. Lilith had taught her frugality. But how much this simple meal cost her--even such a negligible amount--brought home how limited her resources were. She would be hard-pressed to rent some squalid garret. A proper machine shop was beyond her resources.  
  
Of course, the university was brimming with everything she needed. She could always ask--  
  
Agatha paused with her vacuum flask at her lips.  
  
Why ask the Wulfenbach who had killed her master and dragooned her into his service?  
  
A smile that would have worried Lilith immensely bloomed in the shadows of a day not yet born. Agatha's thoughts wandered into territory that she would never have considered. They involved such concepts that would have horrified her when serving Tarsus Beetle. Such as, say, requisitioning one the the many one-room labs that dotted the campus. They were commonly used by faculty and graduate students. One might be found assigned to a professor who was on a research trip or otherwise off-campus. That meant backdating the requisition to be plausible. It could only be accomplished by someone with privileged access to the university systems and intimate understanding of its paperwork.  
  
Agatha touched the notes on Gil's engine tucked next his notebook. With a sigh, she ducked into an alley to slosh the notes into a rain barrel before shredding them to pieces. Lilith had told her she must hide. The very moment she could finally think, she had to fall back into being the silly, stupid Clay girl who did nothing right. She could not show such skill openly. Agatha gritted her teeth. She had said her competency would pass. There would have to be headaches and stumbling again. Not enough to get her fired, but enough to cover up her Spark.   
  
Grumbling, she trudged towards the university gates where--  
  
"Hadrian!" Agatha cried out, dashing over to where he waited by a postern door. "Oh, I'm so sorry about what happened yesterday. It wasn't you."  
  
"I had the effrontery of taking liberties with you." Hadrian touched where four thin scars ran down one cheek from temple to jaw. "You had every right to chastise me."  
  
"There was nothing to be punished for," Agatha said. "I just had a horrible thought in that moment."  
  
"My family has served in Mechanicsburg for generations." Hadrian's voice lowered to a whisper. "Spark can be volatile, after all."  
  
"I haven't been hiding it at all well, have I?" Agatha said.  
  
"Mechanicsburghers are sensitive to Sparks." Hadrian chuckled. "We would not have survived long serving the Heterodynes if we hadn't."  
  
"I don't want a minion." Agatha caressed where she had marked him. "I like you better as a...ah...a boy-shaped friend?"  
  
"Would you settle for me for being your devoted slave, willing to indulge every desire scientific and carnal?" Hadrian whispered.  
  
There was a brief silence in the false dawn.  
  
"Came on too strong?"  
  
"A little." Agatha said, cheeks alive with color. "I can work with that.”


End file.
